Introduction

This volume engages with the question of how labour is transforming under late capitalism, and what insights the study of sex work offers into these transformations. Nine case studies from the Global North situate sex work within the frameworks of neoliberal governance, digitalization, platformization, and the gig economy, and examine how economic relations, labour practices, and activism are changing under these conditions. The authors draw on critical labour theories and perspectives from neoliberalism, digital capitalism, social reproduction, and stigma, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. The introduction situates sex work within broader socio-economic transformations and outlines the volume’s central themes. Across the contributions, sex work emerges as a vital lens through which to understand contemporary contradictions in labour: autonomy entangled with precarity, visibility with surveillance, and agency with algorithmic control. The authors highlight the mobility and agency of labouring subjectivities and show how resistance often emerges through strategic engagement with the very structures of exploitation produced by neoliberalism. Affirming sex work as legitimate labour, the volume argues that legal recognition alone cannot redress the broader systems of exclusion and exploitation embedded in late capitalism. It invites readers to critically engage with the structural dynamics of neoliberal political economy and reconsider the role of sex work in labour struggles.