Student sex work: governmentality in higher education and silence as a technology of power

ABSTRACT This article draws on interviews with student support service providers in the United Kingdom and United States of America to illustrate conflict between university values such as equality, diversity and inclusivity and the lack of protections and support afforded to students engaged in sex work. Utilising Foucauldian concepts of power and governmentality to inform our analysis, we contend that the silence surrounding students engaging in sex work in higher education is a technology of power and part of a governmentality in higher education which is damaging and oppressive to students engaged in the sex industry. We also consider a range of harms that student service providers believe students engaged in sex work are experiencing through a zemiological lens, which usefully renders less visible harms visible. In doing so, we aim to accelerate an understanding of the grim challenges students engaged in sex work in higher education environments are facing.