Sex on the Move, Moving for Sex: Queering Sex Work, Mobility and Sexual Citizenship in South Africa

On 18 August 2026, I presented my PhD scholarship online for Sol Plaatje University. In this seminar, I explored how mobility shapes the everyday lives, identities and experiences of sex workers. The presentation examined mobility as critical to sexual citizenship and gendered subjectivities, while theorising the complex relationships between agency, vulnerability, pleasure and displeasure. It also considered the importance of erotic vocabularies and how sex workers articulate, negotiate and make meaning of desire, intimacy, sexuality and work. Drawing on queer perspectives, I challenged conventional understandings of sex work by foregrounding movement, embodiment, desire and lived experience. The talk invited attendees to think differently about how people move through and experience social, sexual and gendered spaces in South Africa, and how mobility can simultaneously create possibilities, constraints and forms of agency.