Economies of Violence

"Economies of Violence is a refreshing intervention into the global anti-trafficking discourse. Smart, timely, politically relevant, and convincingly argued, it will appeal to audiences both inside and outside of academia. Jennifer Suchland's book is a clarion call to academics, activists, and policy makers to radically rethink the way we talk about trafficking."
- Kristen Ghodsee, author of The Left Side of History: World War II and the Unfulfilled Promise of Communism in Eastern Europe

"Jennifer Suchland's reframing of the sex trafficking debate in the context of precarious labor is powerful, and has important academic and political implications. Offering an original perspective on the feminist debate about sex trafficking, Suchland explains how and why the sex trafficking debate acquired its rhetorical tropes. Economies of Violence is a significant and important contribution to feminist studies."
- Kristin Bumiller, author of In an Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated the Feminist Movement Against Sexual Violence

"Economies of Violence's exploration of trafficking's economic and social causes is . . . useful not only for decoding the genealogy of sex trafficking discourse, but also as an appeal to governments and societies and to develop more robust methods for combatting not only human trafficking but also precarious labor together with the social exclusion and legal inferiority it ensues." - Shulamit Almog, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

"Suchland is to be commended for producing a fine analysis that sets new research agendas for several different groups of colleagues and students. She draws the attention of area specialists to the sex trafficking narrative neoliberal elites have used and the unintended but highly negative effects it has had for local NGOs in Russia and the ex-USSR." - Alexandra Hrycak, Russian Review

"Economies of Violence provides an important corrective to the dominant narratives of human trafficking which tend to focus on individual actors (victim, perpetrator) at the expense of the structural factors that make people vulnerable to trafficking in the first place." - Lauren A. McCarthy, Canadian Slavonic Papers

"Suchland’s attention to the erasure of capitalism’s violence provides a refreshing way to rethink the role of law, order, and the police in the context of human betterment. . . . Suchland’s book offers an innovative contribution to the emerging field of critical feminist trafficking studies." - Julietta Hua, Law, Culture and the Humanities

"Economies of Violence untangles dense discursive webs around sex trafficking by showing precarious labor as the lynchpin of sex trafficking and the U.S.S.R.’s postsocialist transition. . . . Importantly centering the neglected postsocialist world, Suchland allows readers to imagine and contemplate the structural economic inequities of global capitalism that produce precarious labor and undergird global violence." - Jennifer A. Zenovich, Women's Studies in Communication

"[Economies of Violence] offers a timely, wide-ranging and provocative reconceptualization of trafficking discourses, especially of the ways in which the prohibitionist position has come to inform global anti-trafficking policy. . . . [Suchland's] excellent book not only provides an important challenge to prohibitionist arguments, but also offers sex workers and advocates many profound and important analytical resources." - Robert Heynen, International Feminist Journal of Politics

"Suchland makes great strides for our understanding of counter-trafficking with her genealogical analysis. . . . This book is a deep well from which to draw multiple and complex discussions." - Leyla J. Keough, Slavic Review

"Lively and thought-provoking, Suchland’s book challenges us to consider the alternative interpretations of sex trafficking that have been displaced by contemporary notions of human rights, bodily autonomy and victimhood." - Celia Donert, Slavonic and East European Review

"An important work, because it explicitly discusses a blurry distinction between the losers and victims of globalized economic activity." - Galina Belokurova, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society