Ethnography

Sex work is a hidden social practice, a practice that is not well understood in as much detail as ethnography can provide. Much of the research on sex work in Australia is generated through interviews, existing data, or expertise from health and community service providers. Murray and Robinson's (1996) study breaks with this tradition by conducting an ethnographic study of peer education among sex workers in the practices of safe sex. The study considered how sex workers come to be labelled a risk group, particularly within the discourse of HIV, and how peer-assisted support for safe sex practices is carried out. The study sought to identify the prostitutes' own networks and to gather information about how they gain access to these networks, including government agencies and bureaucracies, as well as those who have been considered 'the unrespectable poor'. Questions included how sex workers learn about safe sex practices, what processes are involved in changing sex worker practices and behaviour, and whether these educational processes can and should be formalised in settings such as prostitution, given all the attendant legal and social sanctions surrounding sex work.