Human Trafficking and Online Networks: Policy, Analysis, and Ignorance

An article co-autherd by CPS Research Affiliate Kiril Sharapov has been published in Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography.

Abstract

Dominant anti-trafficking policy discourses represent trafficking as an issue of crime, "illegal" migration, victimhood and humanitarianism. Such a narrow focus is not an adequate response to the interplay between technology, trafficking and anti-trafficking. This article explores different levels of analysis and the interplay between human trafficking and technology. We argue for a shift from policy discourses with a very limited focus on crime and victimisation to more systemic understandings of trafficking and more robust micro-analyses of trafficking and everyday life. The article calls for an agnotological understanding of policy responses to trafficking and technology: these depend upon the production of ignorance. We critique limitations in policy understandings of trafficking-related aspects of online spaces, and argue for better engagement with online networks. We conclude that there is a need to move beyond a focus on "new" technology and exceptionalist claims about "modern slavery" towards greater attention to everyday exploitation within neoliberalism.

Keywords: agnotology; ignorance; internet; networks; neoliberalism; technology; trafficking in human beings

The article is available online here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12213/full