Conclusion

This has been an exploratory study of sex worker unionisation and union organisation for two reasons. One reason concerns the implications of examining the embryonic nature of the salient intentions, processes and outcomes. The second concerns the consequences of the enforced truncation of the research methods deployed. Together, these mean that the account and analysis contained herein need to be viewed in the following terms: laying out the first attempt to establish the broad and general terms and framework concerning sex worker union organisation across a number of national economies-cum-societies. Hopefully, the research will then constitute something of an opening sortie and ‘work-in-progress’ for the wider field. The research methods used were appropriate and fruitful to this task at the chosen level of the unit of analysis. The book has sought to operate on the terrains of meso- and macro-, and general and specific levels as a means to integrate analysis of the processes of accumulation and exchange, identities, ideology, labour, markets and regulation within the dynamics and form of capitalism. Particular attention has been paid to the levels of the work setting, broader social institutions and wider social relations. Throughout this, sex work and its work settings have been recognised not just as relatively diverse phenomena, but an explanation for diversity has been put forward with regard to contingency and indeterminacy for the processes and outcomes of wage-labour and consequent implications for unionisation.