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Paper short abstract:

Through ethnographic engagement with the everyday lives of sex working migrants from 'Eastern European' countries in Berlin, this paper discusses how labour mobilities, sexual liberties and 'European' freedoms acquire ambivalent meanings for people positioned at the fringes of (Western) 'Europe'.

Paper long abstract:

Freedom(s) and liberties are defined as cornerstones of the European Union and feature prominently in evocations of 'European' values. At the same time, the history of 'European' liberalism and its current neoliberal manifestations clearly illustrate how the provision of these freedoms is based on structural exclusion and exploitation of those who are juxtaposed to hegemonic (Western) 'Europe' as non(-fully) 'European' others.

Yet, what do these 'European' freedoms and liberties mean to people who, as citizens of the European Union, are granted certain rights and freedoms, but who do not embody the gendered, racialized, classist and sexualized norms of (Western) 'Europeanness'? This paper discusses this question based on ethnographic encounters with migrants from 'Eastern Europe', who engaged in sex work in pre-pandemic Berlin.

For my interlocutors, (labour) mobilities as well as transactional sex represented both economic necessities due to precarisation and possibilities to embody 'modern' (Western) 'European' subjectivities. While the Berlin as a liberal 'European' metropolis held the promise of realising the latter, the German capital also proved to be an urban space in which the prospects of (Western) 'European' freedoms and liberties had to be constantly negotiated due to manifold experiences with exclusion and exploitation. In this context, freedoms and liberties acquired ambivalent meanings, which contributed to participants being caught in a tension between a (desired) participation in (Western) 'European' freedoms and a marginalization as 'Eastern Europeans'.