Prostitution Policy Models and Feminist Knowledge Politics in New Zealand and Sweden

This article analyses expert discourse on prostitution in New Zealand and Sweden using governmentality theory. The article
shows that in both cases, experts adopted research methodologies based in criticism of past research as supporting heterosexual
male hegemony. New Zealand experts emphasized giving voice to prostitutes as a marginalized, predominately female population
and producing research that benefited them. Swedish experts argued that research should focus upon global sex markets and
hegemonic masculinities, successfully advocating criminalizing clients and pimps, but not prostitutes. The article argues
that both policies exemplify contrasting advanced liberal governmental techniques. In New Zealand, the critical methodology
of attention to prostitute voices informed techniques of agency which sought to empower sex workers to manage their own health
and human rights problems. In Sweden, the methodology of studying up informed advanced liberal authoritarian techniques which
disciplined and punished sex buyers in the interests of their own freedom and in conformity with Swedish constructions of
freedom. In each case, advanced liberal governmentality instrumentalized knowledge produced by critical feminist research
methodologies to inform governmental techniques that produced localized gendered norms of personhood.