29 UNODC, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2014 (Vienna: UNODC, 2014).
30 GRETA, Fourth General Report (2015), p. 54 (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2015).
31 Country reports can be consulted online at: www.coe.int/en/web/anti-human-trafficking/country-reports.
32 Kangaspunta, K. (ed.), Special Issue: Researching Hidden Populations: Approaches to and Methodology for Generating Data on Trafficking in Persons (2015) 8 Forum on Crime and Society (New York: United Nations), pp. 109–137; Van Dijk, J.J.M., “Estimating Human Trafficking Worldwide: A Multi-mode Strategy”, Kangaspunta, K. (ed.), Special Issue: Researching Hidden Populations: Approaches to and Methodology for Generating Data on Trafficking in Persons (2015) 8 Forum on Crime and Society (New York: United Nations), pp. 1–15.
33 Bales, K., Hesketh, O., and Silverman, B., “Modern Slavery in the UK: How Many Victims?” (2015) 12(3) Significance 16–21.
34 Van Dijk, J.J.M. and Van der Heijden, P., On the Potential of Multiple Systems Estimation for Estimating the Number of Undetected Victims of Trafficking in Persons (Research Brief, UNODC, 2016).
35 The target for SDG 16.2 is to: “End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence and torture against children”. In addition, targets for SDG 5.2 are to: “Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation”; and for SDG 8.7 to: “Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers”.
31
Knowledge production on human trafficking and everyday governance practices
Claudia Vorheyer
Data on human trafficking in the light of the sociology of knowledge: an introduction
Trafficking in human beings (THB) is a highly complex phenomenon which, according to the Palermo Protocol (2000),1 occurs through a wide range of acts – recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons – by means of threat, the use of force or other forms of coercion, the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments for the purpose of exploitation. It is also described as an illegal underground activity, which can be discovered and detected sometimes only with great difficulty.
It cannot be denied that THB poses a major challenge to the State and (global) civil society. Therefore, it is dealt with by a range of national and international governmental, as well as non-governmental, institutions and organisations, all aiming to combat THB (even though they focus primarily on different functions and tasks, such as preventing or supressing and punishing THB, as well as providing support and advice to trafficked persons).
In order to determine and monitor the magnitude of THB, to (better) recognise and understand its structural factors, and to develop successful intervention strategies on this basis, State authorities, civil society organisations, and researchers seek to compile and analyse relevant data in the form of registered cases, files, and statistics, as well as (expert) reports and opinions. Only recently has this approach – based on the implication that, “if we could just acquire the data, we could solve the problems of human trafficking” –been subject to critical scrutiny.2
In everyday life, policy makers, practitioners, and citizens tend to consider these figures and documents, which are part of field-specific knowledge production, as an objective representation of the reality of THB. This is not to suggest that there exist no critical responses and reflections, for instance, concerning the question to what extent statistical data and estimations accurately depict the scale and circumstances of trafficking. However, practitioners and policy makers, firstly, are involved in certain organisational rationalities and discourse practices; and, secondly, operate under a permanent need to take action. However, the sociology of knowledge approach sheds a different light on those forms of knowledge production and discourses. From Berger and Luck-mann’s, and Schütz’s, point of view, they are understood as social constructions of reality in terms of (objectified) collective perceptions and understandings of the phenomenon of THB, which emerge from, and are perpetuated in, social interaction.3 Social actors, as acknowledged in this theoretical framework, constantly make sense of their experiences and practices by developing a model of their everyday social (including professional) world. That means that not only policy makers and practitioners but also researchers dealing with the issue of THB create, share, and affirm a common knowledge consisting of certain relevances and structures of meaning regarding THB; for instance, a certain definition of the situation, social categorisations, and patterns of explanation.
The sociology of knowledge is interested in the relationship between social typifications, significations, and institutions, on the one hand, and the social context within which they arise, on the other – as well as in the impact that the prevailing ideas and discourses have on society. Moreover, it refers to cultural and historical relativity, and the contingency of knowledge production, that underlie the social construction of reality.
In the sociological and political science literature on governance in the area of THB, scholars are often interested in public discourses at the macro level, or in examining policy models, which are part of verbal and nonverbal discourse practices.4 These studies provide interesting and significant findings. However, they rarely take a closer look at the meso and micro level of the governmental agencies and civil society organisations that implement laws or policies related to THB, although both matter from a theoretical, as much as, if not even more than, from a practical point of view.5
This chapter adopts a perspective that merges a bottom-up and top-down approach in order to do justice to the complexity of social reality. It not only draws on the theoretical insights of the sociology of knowledge and social constructionism, but also applies the framework of actor-centred institutionalism, which will be outlined here.6 Moreover, the purpose of the chapter is to present the findings of a qualitative social research project on the governance of prostitution and THB for the purpose of sexual exploitation in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic, carried out by the Department of Political Science at the University of Leipzig from 2004 to 2006, and continued at the Department of Sociology at the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg from 2006 to 2008.7 This research project focused on knowledge production of frontline actors governing human trafficking in their everyday occupational environment. Their patterns of perception and social constructions of reality related to THB were identified by conducting and analysing qualitative expert interviews.8 As a result, their knowledge can be characterised as hybrid knowledge, since it comprises not only ‘high-status knowledge’ in terms of scientific, specialised, and professional knowledge, but also ‘low-status knowledge’, referring to common sense and perceptions about morals, decency, and public order.9 Beyond that, case studies reveal the relevance of knowledge production to the application or non-application of law and regulations, directives, and guidelines at the organisational and individual level. To put this into perspective, it must be emphasised that the empirical data and results presented here pertain to prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation only. Nevertheless, its theoretical perspectives and empirical generalisations are likely to be applicable to other forms of THB as well. Further studies, particularly on THB for the purpose of forced labour or organ transplants, as well as in other national, regional, and local contexts, would be needed to support the findings of this study.
The next section elaborates the theoretical framework of actor-centred institutionalism. In conjunction with the sociology of knowledge, actor-centred institutionalism provides a meaningful explanation of the impact that knowledge production has in, and on, administrative practice. Thereafter, the research methodology of theory-generating expert interviews is introduced, before presenting the results of the st
udy in the form of theoretical generalisations, and by illustrating case analyses concerning police work related to prostitution and human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Finally, the conclusion discusses the empirical findings in terms of both their scientific relevance as well as their practical implications for the governance of THB at the level of implementation.
Why and how knowledge production matters in governing human trafficking: a theoretical explanation applying actor-centred institutionalism
Both theoretically and empirically, knowledge production plays an important role in the governance of THB. In a first step towards gaining an appropriate understanding of how and why, this chapter introduces the theoretical framework of actor-centred institutionalism, as well as the concept of governance. The term ‘governance’ refers to a change in the meaning and reality of government, which, it is argued here, even increases the relevance of knowledge production at all levels.10 Prior to the changes in late and postmodernity, traditional government and public administration in most European countries tended to be characterised by rigid, hierarchical, bureaucratic structures based on functionally differentiated and separated State institutions. Since then, a transformation of the polity has been observed in terms of the structural, formal, and institutional dimensions of government, politics, and its process-related aspects. In addition to State and public authorities, other organisations and civil society actors have gained importance in managing a country’s affairs at all levels. The trend has been toward a shifting role of government, from policy making to policy moderating. Decision making and implementation is (now) often performed by inter-organisational networks of national, supranational, and international governmental actors, as well as community organisations, whether formally or loosely organised, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), multilateral and regional organisations, the private sector, political parties and politicians, interest groups, citizens, and the mass media. Hence, governmental institutions function to a greater extent as initiators, moderators, co-ordinators, sources of funding, qualifiers, and democratic controllers; and the other actors as multipliers.11 In the course of this development, not only structures, but also processes, have changed due to the broader range of actors involved in managing public affairs and responsibilities. Now complementing the traditional hierarchical and compartmentalised system are more flexible networks and projects based on an underlying logic of steering and control characterised by principles of negotiation, collaboration, and exchange. In this context, cross-functional and trans-sectoral communication and the dissemination of field-specific expert knowledge are gaining importance and influence at the level of the individual, the organisation, and the whole governance system. Beyond the general notion of governance, the concepts of global governance and multi-level governance underline the fact that (and analyse how) a variety of actors at different domestic and international levels of authority act jointly on issues of the kind involved in preventing and suppressing trafficking.12 In the transnational and global context, individual and collective knowledge production also need to be considered as a key factor in doing policy and politics.
The approach of actor-centred institutionalism contributes to a better comprehension of governance processes by focusing on the dual constitution of institutions and organisations.13 It is based on the assumption that an analysis of organisational structures without reference to actors is as incomplete as an analysis of actors’ behaviour without reference to organisational structures.14 In this framework, individual actors are defined by institutions, while organisations are produced and reproduced by their individual and collective members. Taking into account that actors and institutions are mutually constitutive and interdependent, actor-centred institutionalism attempts to integrate structure-and agency-oriented elements of organisation theories. From this point of view, institutional and organisational settings, such as objectives, regulations and structures, shape actors’ roles, identities, and interests, but never fully determine them. By putting them into practice, executive and frontline staff never simply pursue predefined objectives, apply regulations, and do so within given structures, but modify, transform, or neglect them based on their collective or individual orientations.15 This is so because members of governance bodies always also belong to other kinds of social groups and categories in terms of their profession and institutional affiliations, social class and milieu, gender and generation, ethnic or national communities, which all may impact upon their cognitive and motivational focus and performance. Their social construction of reality or, more precisely, their task-related knowledge production and management, as well as other organisational practices, arise from their professional habitus; meaning that their dispositions for perceiving, thinking, and acting are formed through relevant vocational experiences, training, and socialisation processes.16
According to the sociology of knowledge and theory of perception, perceptual images and categories are the outcome of a process encompassing the object of perception itself, as well as the perceiving actor.17 Driven by the need to understand, classify, and integrate observed reality into an existing pool of experience and classification systems, individual and collective processes of perception are characterised by processes of structuring and interpretation, including accentuation and selectivity. Since the objects of perception are part of the social world and these phenomena are neither unequivocal nor unambiguous, individuals are inevitably involved in shaping their perception of reality. Such a ‘subjectivity of perception’ is mediated by the formative influence of previous experiences, societal discourses, and the social environment. Moreover, organisational members’ scope for action varies: for instance, not only depending on the complexity of the problem and the situation of action, but also on actor constellations, resources, and the degree of internal and external regimentation and control.18
The subject matter of governance, as considered from the theoretical perspective of actor-centred institutionalism, is not the primacy of organisational structure over actor behaviour and attitudes, or vice versa. Their interaction and interrelation remains an open question, which can only be answered empirically in regard to a certain field and nature of the situation. For this reason, we will now turn to the methodology and results of a qualitative study on the governance practices and professional habitus of actors in a governmental organisation and civil society context who deal with prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Researching governance on human trafficking ‘from below’: making use of expert interviews
The research project on governance of prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation aimed to examine everyday structures of meaning, and the practices of public officials and civil society actors. Employing an interpretative paradigm, the study assumed that knowledge production and social construction of reality are essentially reflected in language and terminology. On this account, it is based on qualitative interview methodology, or to be more precise, on theory-generating expert interviews.19
Expert interviews can be considered a special type of qualitative interview method, focusing on specialist or expert knowledge and the activities emerging from their participation in certain institutions, organisations, and professional fields or social movements. Even though expert interviews belong to the group of semi-structured interviews, the guiding questions and the conversation between interviewee and interviewer are supposed to be handled openly and flexibly in order to capture the interview partners’ relevances, as well as patterns of interpretation and orientation. In addition to their possession of specialist knowledge, another criterion that defines experts is that their social or organisational position is accompanied by power of definition, decision-making authority, and, in some cases, control over implementation.20 Experience-based, field-specific expert knowledge is generally more common at middle and lower organisational levels than in leading positions and higher management, because the former are directly involved in certain tasks
and issues.21
Therefore, the 35 interviews on which the research is based were conducted with frontline officials and non-governmental employees in the social arena of governance of prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation in Germany (25), Poland (10), and the Czech Republic (10). These countries differ in terms of not only their prostitution policies, but also regarding their systems of administration. Poland and the Czech Republic are examples of the abolitionism model, while Germany stands for the regulationism approach.22 Polish and Czech administration, both historically and in the present, can be seen as centralised, whereas Germany represents a more decentralised model of administration. The sampling strategy takes this systemic variation into consideration. In Germany, the interviews were gathered in different states and communities, or, to be more precise, within the federal states of Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg, as they are located in the border regions adjacent to Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as in the inland states of Saxony-Anhalt and North Rhine-Westphalia. In the German border states, a special research focus was also on the question of whether, how, and by whom existing cross-border prostitution scenes are dealt with. In Poland and the Czech Republic, by contrast, data collection proceeded according to the centralised administrative structures and processes, so that the interviews were conducted with public officials and representatives of NGOs in Warsaw and Prague. Additional interviews were conducted in particular border regions with Germany. In addition to these systemic and spatial-territorial aspects of national and transnational governance, the sampling strategy furthermore considered essential functional and professional variations. Firstly, the interviewees were chosen to capture functionally differentiated areas of governance of prostitution and THB for sexual exploitation, such as the police force and regulatory agencies, as well as social work and public health facilities. Secondly, the approach to governance employed here, reaching beyond State institutions and authorities only, led to the inclusion of civil society organisations and transnational projects as well.
Routledge Handbook of Human Trafficking Page 79
