The making and mobilisation of interests: Doing representation in sex worker rights activism in Germany

Representation is frequently the subject of debate within the sex worker rights movement, as activists are often sex workers in more privileged positions compared to the rest of the sex working population. Sex worker rights activists have been criticised for being too privileged to understand and speak up for the rights of less privileged sex workers, to the point that their activism has even been discredited from outside as well as within the movement. Therefore, the question arises as to what extent more privileged sex workers in activist roles are able to represent more marginalised and precariously-situated sex workers.
To address this issue, I expand on the concept of representation that has thus far been applied in social movement studies and in the labour union literature to understand how collective action happens or how movement leaders relate to their constituents. In the literature so far, representation has been understood as a one-dimensional process in which the interests of the broader population are a given and vocalised by a particular group acting on behalf of this population. As an alternative to this, I re-conceptualise representation as a process that is constructed by both those seeking to represent and those being represented, whereby interests are shaped and roles are constructed that enable sex worker rights activists to take action and make demands as representatives of the broader sex working population.
Based on interviews, focus groups and participant-observation designed and carried out according to a feminist participatory research-oriented methodology, this study examines the internal processes of activism to expose previously overlooked dimensions of representation and mobilisation. The study shows that representation is constructed through internal processes of activism that absorb the input of sex workers outside of formal activist organisations who may not actively participate in movement activities. This shows how needs and interests of sex workers are accounted for and vocalised even when those bearing these needs and interests are not always physically or actively present in activism.