Emotional Work under the Eye of Social Work: Exit Accompaniments from Sex Work in Geneva
This article presents an exploratory participatory research approach that describes and analyses the emotional work of social workers in their interactions with (ex-)sex workers in a Geneva-based association during psychosocial support for exiting sex work. The article shows how the emotional work of social workers, underpinned by a feminist project of emancipation, unfolds in specific spaces and temporalities. Then, it shows how this emotional work allows the emergence of a critical consciousness on the one hand, and on the other hand, the setting in motion of a process of accompanied women’s empowerment.