GLOBAL PRESSURES, LOCAL MEASURES: THE RE‐REGULATION OF SEX WORK IN THE ANTWERP SCHIPPERSKWARTIER

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the changes in the Antwerp Schipperskwartier, one of the oldest and largest red light districts on the European continent. While the geography of sex work has received considerable scholarly attention since the 1970s, such analyses have focused upon the interplay between market pressures and sexual values in the production of sexual spaces. This paper takes a different stance, as it analyses the Schipperskwartier's restructuring in the light of the globalisation of the sex industry. This analysis reveals how more attention should be paid to globalisation's local mediation (glocalisation) in the analysis of the changing urban geographies of sex work. Such an approach not only supports the interpretation of local diversity in the urban geographies of sex work. It also conveys a more politicised understanding as it zooms in on the political struggles in which new urban geographies of sex work unfold.