A decolonial walk: Bengali migrants in the East End
To bring some post/decolonial history to a walking-tour literary festival, I’m offering Monica Ali’s Brick Lane. The novel’s protagonist is Nazneen, a Bangladeshi woman who comes to …
Author: laura agustin
Historical migrations of workers and layabouts
This walk’s published title is Historic Workingclass Migrations to London: Irish, Italian, African, Jewish, with the tag working-class standing in for a range of precarious situations. When poor…
Gender, Sex and Class in East End History
I’m glad to say I’ve achieved a goal to create walks in the East End of London. For these first walks I’ve focussed in the western area of…
London’s Sex Industry and the Stage in the Long 18th Century
Does the term sex industry sound an anachronism when talking about the long 18th century? It’s not; if anything this is when the potential for serious variety in…
What’s unusual about this antislavery walk?
My newest walk is Campaigning for the Abolition of Slavery: Central London Landmarks, which illuminates the many efforts to end slave-trading and slavery in Britain (and the world!)…
Which 14th-century working women did sex work?
I’m speaking at Salon for the City on Thursday night this week. The title of the salon is London: City of Sex Work, and my co-speaker is Julie…
History from Below in Camden Walks
From Navvyman by Dick Sullivan via www.victorianweb.org What do you think about when you hear the name Primrose Hill? Good pubs, celebrity-residents, the view over London? For me…
An Interest in the Backside of Things
All our lives society has been represented to us as a hierarchy or pyramid in which the rich are located at the top, the middle class sits underneath…
I’ve won a prize: Women’s History Network Independent Researcher Grant
The best thing about this award is the fact that someone like myself can qualify at all. The Women’s History Network, recognising those doing rigorous research without being…
How to buy tickets for Laura’s London History Walks with Gender, Sex and Class
If you’re not an insider in ticket-buying circles, how to do it may not be obvious. Eventbrite is the name of an easy-to-use service that takes care of…
Open for Business: London Walks with Gender, Sex and Class
Why do most historical accounts fail to mention women? And not only women but just about every ordinary non-famous non-rich person that ever was, even in accounts of…
Who wants to go to Essex? A walk in Rochford town and by the River Roach
My title is a paraphrase of Margaret Thatcher’s dissing of Hackney, but prejudice against Essex is knee-jerk amongst loads of middle class folks who didn’t like her. Much…
Scratching out a living: The Medieval Female Proletariat – A guided walk
As part of the Totally Thames Festival to be held in September 2023 I’m offering a walk I created, Scratching out a living by the river: The Medieval female…
The Witches of Manningtree: A Walk on the River Stour
PUBLIC NOTICE: I’ve become a qualified tour guide. Not because I want to take tourists to see the changing of the guard or other typical tourist delights but…
Le sexe en tant que travail et le travail du sexe (Sex as work and sex work)
Le sexe en tant que travail et le travail du sexe Ouvrage, traduction par Etienne Simard Une version anglaise de ce texte a été publiée dans Jacobin Magazine…
Christmas in the Brothel
Christmas in the Brothel Edvard Munch, 1905 The post Christmas in the Brothel appeared first on The Naked Anthropologist.
Snake Oil: A Memoir on the Rise of ‘Trafficking’
When future historians try to understand what ‘trafficking’ meant in the first 20 years of the 21st century, I hope this memoir gives them pause. Recording how my…
Sex workers working with police: Sue Davis, Vancouver BC
We hear most about the big moments in sex workers’ rights movements – court decisions, parliamentary reports, conferences, public protests. But many groups engage in negotiations behind th…
Sexworkers’ long history as political experts, English translation: Thierry Schaffauser
I’ve translated Thierry’s reflections published the other day as faithfully to his tone as I could and checked with him, so here’s the piece with the same title,…
Sexworkers’ long history as political experts: Thierry Schaffauser
The other day Thierry Schaffauser posted some reflections on facebook on the history of sexworkers as thinkers and leaders in activism for social change. Objecting to the exclusion…
Naked Anthropologist News: Bloody Brexit, Feb 2020
News from the many worlds of sex work, provided to Radio Ava in London, February 2020 by me, the Naked Anthropologist, Laura Agustín. The Naked Anthropologist celebrates…
Naked Anthropologist News for Radio Ava: Jan 2020
Since last spring I’ve been providing Naked Anthropologist News to Radio Ava, a sexworker project in London. Something between tweeting and blogging, these news-bits are meant to be…
Christmas in the unexciting brothel
Edvard Munch painted Christmas in the Brothel in 1905, and every year I feel the same fondness for it. I don’t pay much attention to the ceremonies of…
What is Decrim? The many places of prostitution in law
Recently the short form decrim has appeared in the name of several groups campaigning for decriminalisation of prostitution: the removal of criminal penalties for selling and buying sex.…