10.

1177/1077800403252734
QUALITATIVE
Wahab / CREATING
INQUIRY
KNOWLEDGE
/ August 2003
COLLABORATIVELY ARTICLE

ARTICLES

Creating Knowledge Collaboratively

With Female Sex Workers:
Insights From a Qualitative,
Feminist, and Participatory Study

Stéphanie Wahab
University of Utah

This article reflexively engages substantive, epistemological, methodological, and ethical

issues that surfaced during a feminist, qualitative, and participatory research project
with 6 adult female sex workers in Seattle, Washington. Given the intersubjective
researcher-participant relationship within participatory forms of inquiry, personal and
professional roles and boundaries were often obscure, fluid, and minimally defined. Con-
sequently, issues of power, those personal and institutional, facilitated intriguing ten-
sions that captured this researcher’s attention. Central to the issues explored in this arti-
cle are significant tensions between collaborative, reflexive, community research and
academic modes and structures. In-depth individual dialogue sessions provided oppor-
tunities to both explore and create knowledge collaboratively with sex workers about
their experiences from their perspectives. A spontaneous interpretive focus group cre-
ated an opportunity for the participants, working in diverse arenas of the sex industry, to
meet and exchange thoughts, feelings, and experiences, as well as inform the inquiry
process and the authenticity of the findings.

Keywords: sex work; participatory inquiry; dialogue; feminist; praxis; agency

INTRODUCTION
People consistently ask, “How did you get involved with sex workers?”
I’m repeatedly at a loss for how to begin telling the story . . . my story, their
story, our story. There is the narrative of chronology, timing, and facts. There
is the narrative of my own sexual exploration and quest for female role mod-
els who are sexually empowered, comfortable with their bodies and
sexualities. There are also the narratives of the many sex workers who have
touched my life with whom I’ve worked both in and out of this study. As I will
Qualitative Inquiry, Volume 9 Number 4, 2003 625-642
DOI: 10.1177/1077800403252734
© 2003 Sage Publications

625

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626 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / August 2003

attempt to demonstrate, all of these stories merge, overlap, decenter them-

selves and each other to ultimately create one narrative that performs many
voices, all in the context of participatory action inquiry (Maguire, 1987).
Embedded in this research are significant tensions between collaborative,
reflexive, community research and academic modes and structures.

The Backdrop

Sex work defined as the exchange of sex and/or sexual stimulation for
material gains remains a challenging issue to research, as those involved in
the sex industry are concerned with arrest, stigmatization, and further
“othering” by those who claim to want to help and “know” them. By claiming
to speak for female sex workers and by stating that feminist and sex worker are
mutually exclusive terms (Barry, 1979; Dworkin, 1987; MacKinnon, 1987),
many feminists and most feminist theories on sex work have typically alien-
ated female sex workers from participation in knowledge creation about their
lives. Empirical researchers, for the most part, have similarly further
excluded and alienated sex workers from the production of knowledge about
their lives and experiences by virtue of positivist methods of inquiry that
cling to a strict belief of objectivity, essential truth, and epistemologies that
exclude the influence of context, power, and social construction as they
inform the research process. Sex workers involved in the prostitutes’ rights
movement have argued for some time that the absence of praxis in most stud-
ies conducted “on” sex workers has, among other things, contributed to a
production of knowledge that many sex workers claim does not reflect their
realities (L. Bell, 1987; S. Bell, 1994; Chapkis, 1997; Delacoste & Alexander,
1987; Nagel, 1999). This lack of connection between theory and action within
social science research on sex work has also further stigmatized and isolated
female sex workers (Sloan & Wahab, 2000). Consequently, the rifts between
sex workers and both feminist and academic communities remain vast.

Theory

Because much of the political debates over sex work have been exposed
through feminist lenses, I specifically explored various feminist theoretical
frameworks on sex work to guide my work and exploration, namely, liberal
feminism (Jaggar, 1991; Jolin, 1994), Marxist feminism (Overall, 1992), radical
feminism and domination theory (Barry, 1979; Cole, 1987; Dworkin, 1987;
MacKinnon, 1983, 1987), radical sexual pluralist theory (Califia, 1994; Rubin,
1984), and Black feminist thought (Collins, 1990, 1996; hooks, 1984, 1989, 1990;
Lorde, 1984). All of these theories on sex work have informed my understand-
ing and process of continued exploration of the lives of female sex workers.

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 Wahab / CREATING KNOWLEDGE COLLABORATIVELY 627

All of the feminist theories are located within contemporary feminist debates
on sex work that markedly delineate a continuum of perspectives on sex
work. Historically, feminists have had a complex relationship with sex work.
In fact, the feminist debates on sex work are frequently referred to as the “fem-
inist sex wars.” These sex wars began in the 1960s over issues of pornography
and continue today both nationally and internationally over all sex work ven-
ues. Contemporary debates on adult female sex work largely revolve around
a polarized argument that constructs sex work as either exploitive or liberat-
ing and sex workers as coerced victims or empowered whores (Lerum, 1999;
Sloan & Wahab, 2000).
Before I began working with sex workers, I aligned myself with radical
feminist thought (Barry, 1979; Cole, 1987) and domination theory (Dworkin,
1987; MacKinnon, 1987) that view sex work as exploitive, always coercive,
and oppressive to women. My work and research with the women in this
story radically transformed my thoughts and more important, way of think-
ing and exploring these issues. Hanging out with what my profession has
referred to as “fallen women” (Kunzel, 1993), “women who have lost their
virtue” (Abrams, 2000), victims, “sexual slaves” (Addams, 1912), and women
at risk, challenged my understanding of what it means to be a sex worker,
empowered, othered. They helped me glimpse the ways in which I’ve perpet-
uated the dichotomous division of women into “good girls” and “bad girls.”
Specifically, their presence in my life supported my exploration of the differ-
ent ways in which I’ve disavowed, compartmentalized, and embraced the
different parts of me.

Practice

In 1993, I began a master’s in social work (at the University of Washington)

internship with People of Color Against AIDS Network (POCAAN), a multi-
cultural agency that uses a peer education model to provide HIV/AIDS edu-
cation, prevention, and services to numerous underserved and marginalized
communities in Washington State. Specifically, I worked with POCAAN’s
Girlfriends Talking (GT) program. GT provided HIV/AIDS education and
prevention activities, individual and group support, and advocacy to local
female sex workers in the Seattle area. Although much of my work involved
street outreach with the director of the program, a former sex worker of 25
years from Seattle, I also worked as a cofacilitator in the weekly support
group. GT’s weekly support group addressed a wide range of issues includ-
ing those dealing with health, violence, relationships, safety, addiction, stress,
sexuality, race, class, gender, self-preservation, and harm reduction.
Although GT was mostly attended by street workers, others including escort
workers, dancers, and one manager of numerous escort agencies in the area
also participated regularly.

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628 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / August 2003

Within the first 2 months of my work with GT, two local sex workers, one
dancer and one street worker, were brutally murdered while working. Both
cases received extensive media coverage. All of the attention in the media on
the murders facilitated quite a bit of fear and anxiety among the women on
the streets, as well as the women who participated in GT. In addition, several
of the GT women had friends or family members who had been murdered by
the Green River Killer, a serial killer who murdered 49 (and possibly more)
women, mostly sex workers, in the Seattle area. Consequently, entire GT
meetings were spent dialoguing about violence. The women spoke of vio-
lence they had endured both in their personal and professional lives. Because
my social work experience and expertise lay in the area of domestic violence, I
found myself facilitating numerous groups on issues of violence and self-
preservation.
Within weeks of the second murder, the women of GT wanted to “do
something.” After much brainstorming and sharing, we decided to organize
a vigil to honor and remember women in the sex industry who had been mur-
dered and/or were victims of violence. Our intention was to deliver the mes-
sage that sex workers deserve the same protection, respect, and violence-free
life as all members of society. We wanted to bring attention to the issue of vio-
lence against women; we also wanted an opportunity to educate the public
about sex work. We wanted to help “normalize” the myth and image of sex
workers. We had speakers, poetry, art, live music, and numerous opportuni-
ties for people to “speak out” on the issues concerning violence and sex work.
We called the media and invited the families of the slain women, as well as
social service organizations, vice officers, and the public to attend. The event
was a tremendous success in terms of its attendance, media coverage, sense of
empowerment derived within GT, and the realization of our intentions for the
event. The vigil has become an annual event.
It is through my work with GT that I became involved with various prosti-
tutes’ rights organizations locally, nationally, and internationally. Within a
year, I was an active member of Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE)/
Seattle, the United States’ first prostitutes’ rights organization. I was also a
member of Black Stockings, a Seattle-based organization led and run by sex
workers and designed to “create a place for dialogue about sex work that is
controlled by sex workers themselves” (Black Stockings, 2002). Black Stock-
ings also provides education about sex work/er issues and aims to dispel
myths and misconceptions about sex workers and sex work.
Although I’ve never been able to fully capture how sex workers in the Seat-
tle community perceived me (social worker, voyeur, wanna-be-sex-worker,
advocate, friend, goodie-two-shoes), I do understand that my identity and
membership in segments of the sex worker communities were complex. For
example, within GT, I was a facilitator, a member of the group, a member of an
academic community, as well as a member of other tribes. Similar to many of
my other hybrid identities, I constantly felt like an insider and outsider while

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 Wahab / CREATING KNOWLEDGE COLLABORATIVELY 629

working with sex workers. I tend to be most comfortable when I’m crossing
borders. Despite all of our multiple identities, we shared the experience of
embodied multiple social group memberships. Even though I wasn’t a sex
worker, my relationships with the director of GT, the women of GT, the
women on the streets, the sex worker on my dissertation committee, and
friends who were sex workers together with my memberships in sex worker
organizations allowed me entry into sacred sex worker spaces and conversa-
tions. Within GT, I shared knowledge and information as a researcher and
practitioner. I also shared deeply personal experiences and information about
myself. Perhaps to the chagrin of my social work instructors, GT was a place
where I too received support.

Praxis

I chose a qualitative feminist framework of inquiry for this study because

it provided a paradigm to create knowledge collaboratively with female sex
workers and because it offered participants and me an opportunity to criti-
cally reflect on the effect of certain experiences on our lives (Burt & Code,
1995; Collins, 1990; Harding, 1991; Swigonski, 1993), including our process
together. Intrigued by the feminist debates on sex work and my changing per-
ceptions of sex work and sex workers, I chose to explore how sex workers
understand “what they do” and their experiences in the sex industry from
their perspective as a dissertation project.
Given the philosophical paradigms grounding this study, the objective of
inquiry was conceptualized as creation rather than discovery. To borrow from
Fine (1994), I aimed to explore the “hyphen,” that is, where the participants
and I met in the production of knowledge. I understood that the knowledge
created with sex workers would be a result of all of our life experiences and
social, political, economic, and spiritual standpoints and resources coming
together through dialogue. Consequently, the focus of the research was not to
discover the “truth” of sex workers’ lives but rather to create knowledge with
them collaboratively. Participatory feminist researchers validate the purpose
of research as creation, creation of knowledge experience and action
(Maguire, 1987; Reinharz, 1992; Sohng, 1995). When researchers place them-
selves within the research process as active participants, they challenge the
notion that the purpose of research is discovery. In this study, I located myself
inside the project by: (a) being a member of four sex worker rights organiza-
tions (COYOTE/Seattle, Black Stockings, Whorenet, and International Sex
Worker Foundation for Art, Culture, Education [ISWFACE]); (b) being a
member of Girlfriends Talking; (c) attending an orientation for an escort
agency in Seattle, Washington; (d) engaging in participant observation in
strip clubs and peep shows; and (e) taking part in amateur night in a Seattle
peep show as a dancer. The decision to actually engage in a sex work venue

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630 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / August 2003

(limited as it was) was informed in part by the women in the study who fre-
quently suggested, “If you want to understand sex work, why don’t you do it
yourself?” Although I had often thought about engaging in different types of
sex work, the truth is, I never really had the courage to commit to my interest.
Participatory inquiry was conceptualized as crucial for valid social work
research with sex workers for three reasons. First, it was important that I use
methods that recognized sex workers as the experts on their own lives, partic-
ularly because they have repeatedly been denied the validity of their state-
ments. Second, people who have experienced stigmatization, isolation, and
oppression have the most potential for analyzing and understanding their
experiences (Harstock, 1983; hooks, 1989). Third, qualitative feminist
research and feminist social work practice value the importance of placing
women and their understanding of self and lived experience at the center of
inquiry (Davis, 1986; Gutierrez, 1990). By inviting a sex worker from the Seat-
tle community to serve as an official member of my doctoral committee, sex
workers were involved in the conceptualization of the study design. The
many different sex workers I was involved with served as insider contacts
and helped with participant recruitment. The sex worker on the doctoral
committee consulted in the creation of the dialogue guide. Due to a process of
participant review and an interpretive focus group, sex workers took part in
the later stages of data analysis as well as dissemination of the findings. From
a feminist perspective, participatory work and collaboration are crucial in
terms of producing “valid” social science research (Denzin, 1997; Lather,
1993).

The Participants

I worked with 6 women who were currently working in the sex industry: 2
street workers, 2 nude dancers, and 2 escort workers. Within each of the three
categories, 1 woman of color and 1 White woman were recruited. The ratio-
nale for selecting diverse women from different branches of the sex industry
was an attempt to explore different women’s experiences in the broad and
stratified sex industry arena. All of the women were asked to write a brief
description of themselves prior to our dialogue sessions. The following narra-
tives are represented verbatim.

Carmen

After settling a sexual harassment suit, I realized I had the compassion, commu-
nication and other skills that would make me an excellent whore and I use the
term in its most positive sense. Let’s face it, we all whores. Just some of us sell dif-
ferent parts of ourselves and provide a more socially beneficial service. More
often than not, I’m being paid for my intellect, articulation and companionship.

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 Wahab / CREATING KNOWLEDGE COLLABORATIVELY 631

Sex, in many ways, is secondary. This is true for much of sex work. And as for
being a dyke, sex work with me is a perfect example of why the professional
doesn’t confuse sex and love. Show me any other profession in America where a
woman can have this much independence, this much power and control and
this much money for a few hours and I’ll change careers. Whoring has been very
good to me.

Veronica

I’m 26, a stripper, a barrista and a self-defense instructor. I also volunteer for a
domestic violence agency. My new favorite hobby is kick boxing. I have a pretty
active life, but I especially cherish moments alone listening to music, or if the
weather is so inclined (and it often is in Seattle), listening to the wind in the trees
or the rain against my window.

Nancy

I’m 43, I’ve been in the sex industry for about 25 years. There are some positive
things about sex work like money, running into good people, meeting folks. I’m
a mature woman who likes puzzles, likes checkers and loves to go swimming.
I’m also a mother who has raised two beautiful little boys and I am a little bit of a
homemaker. I have survived a lot of scary situations in my life and I’m still here. I
don’t think Steven King would even take my autobiography.

Jasmin

I am an erotic performance artist, I’m a whore, I’m a cheap sex therapist and edu-
cator a bisexual goddess. I evoke the power of sexual awareness and expression
within myself. I explore and satisfy my own fantasies and bring forth yours. I’ve
chosen to be a sex worker because I am a powerful, independent, expressive,
sensual, nurturing woman. I know who I am and I believe in what I am doing.
The more powerful I become within myself life becomes more valuable. Interest-
ingly enough who I am on stage is so different of how I am in my daily life. I am
in such bliss just going for long walks with my dog. There I can just be part of my
environment, a tree, the water, the earth I sit on, air.

Deborah

Hi, my name is Deborah but you can call me Recovery. Recovery like all of you
Recovery people out there not knowin what to do, who to do it with or who to
trust. It is not until I can begin to forgive myself and others that I can begin to fill
the mis-directions in my life. As a girlfriend of mine say’s, “Love brought me
back”. Sharing my experiences as a prostitute with all the ladies has been helpful
and if I can use my ups and downs to help someone else then so be it. It has been
somewhat of a pleasure in looking at my past to present, especially writing them
down and over viewing my life. It’s kind of, sort of, special, making me feel like
my life was not in vain.

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632 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / August 2003

Saphire

I grew up in the North end of Seattle, Normal, nice life. My parents are nice, they
love me. I graduated in 1984, I started to go to college and I didn’t finish. I didn’t
have the money to finish but if I had really wanted to my parents would have
paid for it. I’m almost 30, I have a six year old. I’m single, never been married. I’m
just a single mom. I got into sex work because of the money really, it was fast
money, easy money and I didn’t want to sell drugs and go to the penitentiary. I
just did what I guess came natural. My escort job is good for now but I don’t
think I want to do this forever. Overall, I’m lucky, I feel like I have a nice life, I just
do my thing.

Dialogue

All but two of the dialogue sessions occurred in my home. Of these two,
one session occurred in the participant’s home and the other in my car. I was
surprised that for the most part, all of the participants chose to meet at my
home. Perhaps my home offered privacy for those participants who were not
“out” as sex workers to their housemates and/or families. Perhaps meeting in
my home may have provided participants with additional information about
me and my life. Perhaps meeting in a public and noisy space was hardly
appropriate due to the sensitive nature of the dialogue sessions, and perhaps
some may have felt it might be more of an intrusion into their lives for me to
go to their homes given the very intimate information about their lives they
were already disclosing.
There has been a groundswell of interest in dialogue across a number of
disciplines and areas of inquiry. Paulo Friere (1970) wrote about “dialogue as
praxis” in the field of education, and Mikahael Bakhtin (1935/1981) wrote
about “dialogue as existence” also in the field of education. David Bohm
(1996), a theoretical physicist, wrote about dialogue as a process that explores
a wide range of human experiences: our values, the nature and intensity of
emotions, thought patterns and processes, the function of memory, cultural
myths, and moment-to-moment experiences. Black feminists such as Patricia
Hill Collins (1990) and bell hooks (1989) discussed dialogue as a method, with
deep roots in an African-based tradition, used by Black women to assess
knowledge claims. In my Palestinian culture, dialogue has been a method
and tool of an oppressed people with incredibly limited access to resources to
share knowledge, create vision, pass on history, and work toward liberation.
Although dialogue has been discussed across different disciplines, com-
mon themes have emerged across the varied discourses that ground dialogue
as an interventive strategy for transformation and emancipation as well as a
form of inquiry. Some of the bridging themes include participation, empow-
erment, reflexivity, transformation, collective thought, and shared meaning.
Dialogue in this study has been conceptualized in a manner that combines

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 Wahab / CREATING KNOWLEDGE COLLABORATIVELY 633

some of the different tenets of the dialogue discourses mentioned earlier, spe-
cifically those grounded in Afrocentric and Palestinian epistemologies where
neither emotion nor ethics are subordinated to reason. Through dialogue, the
participants and I were both learners and teachers simultaneously.
Some of the participants expressed enthusiasm and surprise over the
relaxed nature of our meetings. Carmen, for instance, stated, “I thought that
you were going to show up with a list of questions like are you now or have
you ever been a member of the communist party?” Despite the fact, however,
that I consciously referred to our meetings as dialogue sessions, women fre-
quently referred to our time spent together as “an interview.” Although I had
attempted to distance myself from more traditional research methods and jar-
gon, the participants insisted on language (i.e., “interview”) that I not only
consciously avoided but also felt uncomfortable with due to the participatory
design and intentions of the inquiry. In retrospect, I wish I had explored this
dynamic with the participants during the group meeting. Consequently,
making sense of this interesting issue is no longer a collaborative endeavor.
I’ve wondered if their continued references to our time together as an “inter-
view” despite my attempts to emphasize the collaborative nature of our
endeavor speaks to how they viewed me. It appears as though to them our
time together wasn’t just hanging out; rather, they viewed our sharing and
creating as research, which it was. Despite all of my connections, relation-
ships, and involvements with sex workers, I was still an outsider, a non-sex
worker, and an academician.

Mutuality and Reciprocity

As dialogue provided a comfortable environment for inquiry and the

exchange of information, the study participants probed into my life and expe-
riences. The women engaged me in a variety of ways, and I answered all of
their questions. Saphire asked, “Yea, I’d be curious to hear what you think?”
and “Let’s see, it is interesting to me that you do so many different things
because that is what I do too.” Veronica queried, “Do you feel like all of the
different parts of what the different types of work that you do all tie in
together?” Deborah asked about my curiosity to actually engage in sex work:
“Well, you had mentioned that you were thinking about maybe trying it to
further your curiosity, um, so you said that you wanted to do it, why?” Nancy
wanted to know about my class background: “And maybe you didn’t grow
up around money, I don’t know?” The mutual sharing of information allowed
the participants and me to be reflexive about our life experiences together.
The following narrative excerpts highlight some of the advantages of dia-
logue identified by some of the participants. Some of the comments (i.e.,
Jasmin) preceded a prompt from me to speak to the inquiry process/experi-
ence, whereas others (Deborah and Nancy) were unsolicited.

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634 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / August 2003

Maybe I didn’t say it to you it has just made me think about it more. It has
allowed me to have a different perspective even for myself to like think about
what is going on and the times between the first time talking and seeing what
has been happening at work and seeing how I am there and how I feel and the
interactions with customers. It has just given me a chance to stand back and
really look at it and really like yea, I feel so good that I am doing this, I feel really
good about who I am and myself and it is really great. So yea, it has allowed me
to have a better outlook because I was able to step away and think about it. Oh
yea, this is why I am doing this now. From the first time I did it and taking that
time a year off and getting back into it because this is something that I knew that
felt good to me. It has been a good thing. I’m glad that I have been talking to you.
(Jasmin)

Similarly, Deborah reports:

It has been beneficial for me to be in the study because I am learning about

myself now. I’m learning things in my life so this is kind of like reminding me of
that experience. (Deborah)
But then it is helping me too, going over my life stuff. And do I want to go back to
that? Or do I want to press on? So, it is kind of helping me too and that is why I
basically don’t mind. And if it can help someone else, if it can help you then
maybe it can turn back and it will be a blessing for me. (Deborah)

Both Jasmin and Deborah reported that the dialogue process allowed them to
reflect on some of their experiences in a manner that enriched their under-
standing of their individual realities.
While reflecting on the research process, Nancy expressed concern that I
might misinterpret her report of her experiences and her opinions:

What happens though is that two people hear things two different ways. What I
can tell you about my childhood I might explain some things and you might
hear it differently. So, when you hear the tape, remember that. (Nancy)

The participatory paradigm allowed us to address Nancy’s fears immedi-

ately. Had this been a structured interview, I would have been obliged to wait
until the end of the dialogue session to address her concerns. I explained to
Nancy my desire for a process of participant review that would hopefully
limit the likelihood that I would misrepresent her and other participants’
words. She was very excited and eager to participate in this phase of the data
analysis. It was also at this moment that Nancy expressed an interest in meet-
ing other study participants. She recommended that the participant review
process be conducted in a group format rather than individually. Through
dialogue and participatory methods, Nancy was empowered to inform and
consequently help redesign a portion of the study. I shared Nancy’s sugges-
tion with the other women, and much to my surprise, they all wanted to meet
as a group. One woman did not attend the meeting due to a scheduling
conflict.

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 Wahab / CREATING KNOWLEDGE COLLABORATIVELY 635

Participant Review

Within the context of participatory research, study participants and

researchers work collaboratively during many stages of the research process
to create knowledge and/or action (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000; Maguire,
1987; Renzetti, 1992). Some feminist researchers have suggested that
researchers return to the study participants to discuss the findings
(Cummerton, 1986; Reinharz, 1992; Renzetti, 1992). Participant review was
one of several meaningful participatory steps in this project because sex
workers have often been denied the validity of their statements and not typi-
cally been empowered to speak for themselves.
By far, the most rewarding and intriguing phase of the research process
was the group meeting requested by Nancy and the participants. Ultimately,
the group meeting served as an opportunity for women to become
acquainted and create collective knowledge and served as an interpretive
focus group. None of the participants knew each other prior to the group
meeting. Not only was I fascinated to observe and partake in their interac-
tions, but the women seemed fascinated with each other and their experi-
ences and understandings of “what they do.” The apparent novelty of the
experience crystallized the isolation I’ve so often heard and read that sex
workers experience. The group meeting also provided an extraordinary
opportunity to enhance the credibility and authenticity (Guba & Lincoln,
1989) of the knowledge created by allowing the participants and me to (a)
offer additional information (about the narratives and research process), (b)
clarify any remaining obscurities, (c) summarize the research process and the
findings, (d) determine whether or not the project was useful, and (e) criti-
cally reflect on similarities and differences reported.
When the participants expressed that I had understood what they tried to
convey and when they talked about being excited to share the finished prod-
uct with partners, friends, and colleagues, I knew I had accomplished what I
had set out to do. The findings of this study are discussed elsewhere (Wahab,
2002).

Challenges of Using Dialogue in This Research Process

Self-Disclosure and Identification

Although I understood from the beginning that in the context of dialogue I

would also share personal experiences with the study participants, it was not
until the transcription process that I realized and experienced vulnerabilities
resulting from my self-disclosures. Unlike the participants, my sharing and

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636 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / August 2003

identity was not protected by any measures of confidentiality or human sub-

jects review process.

While I was transcribing my first tape today, I felt very vulnerable. Wondering
who will see this stuff, what are people going to think? I shared a lot. Because of
the language I/we used sometimes, I wonder if academics will think that this is
not academic enough? If I incorporate myself and my experiences in the data,
like I said I would, many people may discover things about me that I don’t care
for them to know. I keep work and my private life separate. Felt vulnerable but
also accepting that this is the kind of research that I want and proposed to do. (1/
12/97 journal notes)

The self-disclosure on behalf of the researcher that occurs within the context
of dialogue significantly differentiates this method of data collection from
other qualitative interviewing techniques. Not only were the participants
“gazing back” (Harding, 1996) at me but so was the academic institution. As I
heard and read our transcribed voices, I vacillated between hearing us
through my personal/professional lens and hearing us through the less per-
sonal, more critical, voyeuristic academic lens. The presence of the institution
that would evaluate my/our work was inescapable during the analysis phase
of this inquiry. Mentors and evaluators demanded that I “analyze” the narra-
tives and assign/discover meaning. Because they wanted ME to tell the sto-
ries, I felt incredibly challenged to navigate the theories and methods that
informed this study with the expectations and demands of the institution. In
the end, even though the participants were involved in various phases of the
inquiry process, the findings and writings of this study reflect my story as
much (if not more) as the participants’ stories. As Lykes (1989) stated, issues
of power remain as collaborative research does not dissolve competing inter-
ests. If there is one story, one song, to be told in this inquiry, it is that which
rests at the intersections of the participants’ lives, my life, and the academic
institution.

Fear of Betraying the Study Participants

The institutional requirements, blurring of epistemological boundaries

introduced by the methods selected, and ethical issues stimulated by the
identification I experienced with the study participants created a stirring
sense of betrayal within myself toward the participants, particularly during
data analysis. The sharing, reciprocity, and mutuality that transpired through
the dialogues facilitated moments of intimate connection between the
women and me. The best way I can articulate what I experienced through dia-
logue was a shared sense of our humanness. It is in dialogue that we shared
some of our vulnerabilities, desires, experiences, fears, and laughter. I saw
myself in all of the women. Although I was aware of the potential for manipu-

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 Wahab / CREATING KNOWLEDGE COLLABORATIVELY 637

lation and ethical trappings of “friendly relationships” between researcher

and participants frequently documented in qualitative feminist literature
(Finch, 1984; Stacey, 1988), I did not experience the sense of our shared
humanness, which led to my sense of identification with many of the partici-
pants, as manipulative, disingenuine, or the source of my sense of betrayal.
Compared to the intimate, human, sharing experience of the dialogues,
the data analysis process felt impersonal, objectifying, and lonely as opposed
to collaborative. Again, because I was asked to “analyze” the data, I feared
that dissecting the whole narratives into smaller pieces, coding, and assign-
ing themes might compromise the integrity and spirit of the narratives as they
stood in their entirety. As paternal as it sounds given their informed consent
to participate, I feared betraying the women by translating and disseminating
our stories for outside viewers. I was acutely aware of what felt like a colonial
position I was taking, if nothing else, by virtue of managing their/our words
and stories. Furthermore, I dreaded the sensationalizing process that occurs
once knowledge and experience are uttered and recorded. We were already
swimming in sensationalism and sexiness given the topic we were exploring.
Ultimately, I didn’t want the academic voyeurs to get their hands on these
women’s experiences. I suppose I felt some ownership and vulnerability as I
was a part of the data as well. More important, I resented my own voyeurism.
My concerns about betraying the dialogue experiences were grounded in a
heightened feminist awareness of my potential power to exploit the study
participants as a researcher. During my struggles with feeling like I was
betraying the participants, I found myself consumed with the notion of
power as “power over,” “power to dominate,” and “power to coerce and con-
trol.” I had significantly overlooked the authentic power of the study partici-
pants. My own struggles with accepting radical feminist beliefs that tend to
view women as “victims” of patriarchy (rather than collaborators in our own
oppression), beliefs that I perceive to be inconsistent with libratory and
empowerment approaches, have led me to embrace paradigms of power that
view it as relational, mutual, and within. Once I reconceptualized the notion
of power to include “power within,” “power to create,” and “power as abil-
ity,” I was able to identify the different ways in which we all held and exer-
cised power in the inquiry process.
The women exercised their power by informing the research design, con-
tributing to knowledge creation about their lives, educating me, and having a
decisive say in the validity, accuracy, and trustworthiness of the project. They
also exercised their power by making statements such as “Well, I prefer to
leave my family stuff out of it,” or “I don’t really want to get into it with you
right now but I will just tell you a little bit about how . . . ,” or “I prefer not to
tell you my age, why does that matter anyway?” Sometimes the participants
demonstrated their power through more subtle actions, body language,
mood, voice intonations, and changing the subject.

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638 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / August 2003

Creating Knowledge Collaboratively

The collaboration for this project began long before the actual dialogue
sessions took place. In fact, collaboration began when I became involved with
Girlfriends Talking more than 2 years prior to this research. The relationships
that I was able to create and nurture through an involvement with Girlfriends
Talking’s street outreach program, weekly group, and community organizing
activities such as the vigil facilitated the motivation, support, and resources
for this project. Prolonged engagement and persistent observation in both
local and national sex work arenas also supported this endeavor. Despite all I
had been taught through many years of formal and informal education by
non-sex-working feminists about the supposed realities of sex workers’ lives,
it was the sex workers of Girlfriends Talking, Black Stockings, COYOTE, and
participants at the International Conference On Prostitution in California in
1997 who shaped how I would attempt to research and understand the lives
of the women in this study.
In-person, telephone, and email peer debriefing (Guba & Lincoln, 1989)
with past and current sex workers, sex workers’ rights activists, and other
academics researching the lives of sex workers provided ongoing critical
feedback to this project. The peer debriefing that occurred prior to and
throughout the study informed the design and methods of the inquiry. In the
end, sex workers and I designed the study together. Collaboratively, we chose
dialogue, we chose (per a participant’s suggestion) to engage in collective
interpretation of the findings (interpretive focus group), and we chose how
and to whom we would share our final product.
Ultimately, reciprocity and reflexivity are the elements of collaboration
that bound this study’s ontology, epistemology, and methods. By being pres-
ent with one another, by listening, sharing, and questioning, we were simul-
taneously exploring inside and outside of ourselves. Deborah’s, Nancy’s, and
Jasmin’s comments about the research process (noted earlier) suggest that the
reflexive experience of the dialogues helped them gain greater insight and
clarity about their thoughts and feelings about their sex work experiences.
Although I can’t speak to the participants’ intrinsic motivations for engaging
in this critical and participatory process, I believe that we were trying to both
make sense of the world around us as well as change it by creating and per-
forming a story. This story challenged: (a) radical feminist constructions of
sex work and sex workers; (b) stereotypes and myths about how sex workers
perceive themselves and their work; (c) traditional methods of knowledge
creation; (c) the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality; (e) the limits
of participatory research conducted within an academic institution; (f) defini-
tions of power that do not include potential, agency, and ability; and (g) para-
digms of inquiry that discourage relationship building, emotionality, and
intimacy as legitimate components of the knowledge creation process. By
engaging and pushing up against these constructs, we created information

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 Wahab / CREATING KNOWLEDGE COLLABORATIVELY 639

about our lives that we can only hope will inform social work and research
praxis with sex workers as well as our own individual and collective under-
standings of our experiences.

In Conclusion

This qualitative study aimed to create knowledge collaboratively with 6

adult female sex workers in the Seattle, Washington, area. The knowledge cre-
ated (discussed elsewhere) addresses: (a) how and why the study partici-
pants entered into the sex industry, (b) how these sex workers talk about and
define what they do, (c) personal agency as it informs sex workers’ experi-
ences, (d) the intersections of race and class in the participants’ work, (e) vio-
lence and sex work, (f) decriminalization, and (g) what social workers can
learn from and about sex workers to improve social service creation and
delivery to this population. Dialogue allowed us to be both learners and
teachers simultaneously throughout the project. Mutual sharing, reflexivity,
relationship building, flexibility, and participant-centered knowledge cre-
ation were all benefits of dialogue and the participatory paradigm.
As supportive of the research intentions as the selected methods were,
challenges around the negotiation of my multiple roles of researcher and par-
ticipant surfaced nonetheless. Although there is no doubt that the methods
guiding this study facilitated rewarding experiences for all of us, the personal
and professional challenges, both ethical and practical, I encountered within
this particular knowledge creation process far exceeded those I’d previously
faced within other research paradigms. Given the intersubjective (interde-
pendent) researcher-participant relationship within participatory forms of
inquiry, personal and professional roles and boundaries are often obscure,
fluid, and minimally defined. Consequently, the relationship dynamics that
transpired throughout the course of the inquiry remain intriguing. How
power is defined, manifested, and informs the inquiry process seems more
nebulous to me than ever. Perhaps the most pressing question I continue to
ponder is, how do we make sense of people’s personal and collective experi-
ences given the multiple realities and intersections of authentic (personal)
power and institutional power? Specifically, how do we negotiate the realities
of social, political, and economic power on experience(s) with the reality that
individuals possess ability, agency, and potential to inform and determine the
course of their own lives to varying degrees? Perhaps the paradoxical curse
and gift of this type of research is that it holds the potential to create more
questions than it sets out to answer.
Although I can’t make the argument that the participants’ lives were or
will be ameliorated economically as a result of this inquiry, I do believe that
the knowledge produced holds the potential to inform social work
approaches and practices with female sex workers. As it stands, feminists,

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640 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / August 2003

social workers, and other helping professionals continue to, for the most part,
regard sex workers as victims and/or deviants who need to be rescued both
from themselves and patriarchal, capitalist systems (Wahab, in press). Per-
haps those interested in the lives of sex workers might be encouraged to learn
to work with and for sex workers by grounding themselves in collaborative
and libratory praxis.
Although it may be too hopeful to think that the women’s experiences
with this particular social worker and researcher may inform and/or change
their previous negative attitudes toward researchers and social service pro-
viders (see Wahab, 1997), I’d like to believe that the positive experiences they
reported may help bridge some of the existing divides. Given the fact that sex
workers’ experiences, behaviors, and thoughts have been pathologized,
demonized, criminalized, and discounted in much of the social science
research, it is likely that regarding sex workers as the experts on their own
lives (in all the forms that can manifest in a study) might encourage them to
consider future collaboration with academics. Also, by engaging in collabora-
tive research, we (academics) are given opportunities to demystify the
research process (and knowledge creation) to individuals and groups who
may otherwise feel put off by such an offer. Finally, participatory research
with sex workers holds the potential to support personal and collective trans-
formation by providing opportunities for sex workers to (a) define the param-
eters and realities of their experiences; (b) challenge stereotypes and myths
that support discrimination against sex workers; (c) break through some of
the isolation they experience, particularly the street workers, by providing
and supporting safe environments for them to meet and network; (d) inform
policy and services designed to affect their lives; and (e) bridge academic and
community divides.

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Stéphanie Wahab is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Social

Work at the University of Utah. She teaches in the areas of diversity and social
justice, social work practice with individuals and groups, and qualitative
research methods. Her areas of practice and research include commercial sex
work, gender studies, domestic violence, and motivational interviewing.

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