As of December 2008, these reviews of Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the  Rescue Industry have been published in academic journals. The book came out in the UK in June 2007 and in the US in October 2007, so that’s a pretty good rate of review. But I only find out about these things by chance, so there may be others. I’m not the owner of the copyrights here or I’d reproduce them; if you want to read these reviews you could try writing to the authors themselves, if you don’t know any academics.

What did reviewers think of the book and what do I think of the reviews? While I have found that non-academic reviews seemed to get the point of what I was trying to do with the book, I have found some of the academic reviews a bit nonplussing and obscure. They all have good things and bad to say about the book, which is fine. What does it mean that they all find different things good and bad, though? Am I too feminist or not feminist enough? Is the fact of the field work’s having been carried out in Spain a problem of some kind? Should I have had more to say about sex qua sex? Et cetera.

Don Kulick’s is the most interesting as a review. Don is an anthropologist and appreciates a point of view less sociological than anthropological. (Anyway I studied in a cultural-studies framework and read things from any and every field). He says

The book easily could have been titled Let’s Stop Talking Crap About Prostitution and Trafficking. It offers a sensible, levelheaded, knowledgeable, and accessible overview of why current debates about prostitution and trafficking are so flawed and confused, as well as a careful discussion of why laws and policies resulting from these debates are harmful to precisely the people they supposedly protect.

Here’s the list of academic reviews so far. For non-academic reviews, see Reviews/Interviews.

Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 5, 4, 2008, by Don Kulick

Body and Society, 14, 2, 2008, by Nicole Vitellone

European Journal of Women’s Studies, 15, 4, 2008, by Giulia Garofalo

International Feminist Journal of Politics, 10, 3, 2008, by Wendy Harcourt

International Migration Review, 41, 3, 2007, by Lynel Long

Análise Social, 43, 4, 2008, by Lorenzo Bordonaro

Theoretical Criminology, 12, 2, 2008, by Melissa Ditmore

European Journal of Women’s Studies, 15, 2, 2008, by Maggie O’Neill