| Description |
While often hailed as the world's oldest profession, prostitution is most commonly considered an illegal activity. As such, prostitution operates as a hidden organization relying on covert organizing processes in order to function. However, this reality begs the question of how hidden organizations operate and (re)produce. Through feminist poststructuralism and communication as constitutive to organizing, the research questions in this study ask how discourse(s) communicatively constitute prostitution and with what unintended consequences. Using local prostitution policies and in-depth interviews, data analysis revealed that policy-as-written and policy-as-practice are disparate in the communicative construction of organizing prostitution. Moreover, discourse is examined through both talk and silence. As a result systematic and pervasive silence(s) organized networks of prostitution in new ways. In the end, prostitution is highlighted as an organized network or rather an (un)organization. |
