The Traffic in Women's Work ― East European Migration and the Making of Europe

A cultural study of the traffic in women within the European Union. It builds upon the challenging situations that a staggering number of Eastern European women face today: at the two extreme poles of the law, the traffic in women in marriage and the traffic in women in coerced sex work, as well as a middle ground of women circulating as domestic servants, nannies, personal attendants, and entertainers in Western Europe and the UK. Drawing on film, national policies, and an impressive range of cultural criticism, the author tells a story that turns out to be not just about female trafficking, but about the enlargement of the European Union and the massive flows of people between eastern and western Europe (and to a lesser degree from postcolonial Africa). At its best, the study questions the foundations of the notion of ?Europe” today.

Anca Parvulescu is associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of Laughter: Notes on a Passion. She lives in St. Louis, MO.