“Area restriction” is the umbrella term used for this thesis to consider geography-based, individually- assigned orders issued by criminal justice agents to remove and restrict targets from particular city spaces. This research focuses on 13 Canadian cities that use arrest-and-release area restriction strategies to managing street sex work(ers). Despite heavy criticism for their punitive nature, area restrictions have received little academic attention. This project takes an exploratory and descriptive approach to the issue in order to develop a platform for future research. Using qualitative, non-experimental methods it also critically analyzes the implementation, logic and reported impacts of the strategies while drawing implications for how area restrictions relate to citizenship statuses of sex workers by mapping exclusions onto the city. Multiple data sources were included but the most significant and compelling information comes from interviews with police officers and community agency workers. Findings suggest that area restriction strategies contribute to substantial social divides between sex workers and other community members, but also between sex workers and important services, resources and their community. At the same time, the strategy is reported as a “temporary relief” measure that is ineffective at lessening sex trade activity and often leads to displacement and dispersal of sex work(ers). However, collaborative efforts in some cities show promise for achieving goals of ‘helping sex workers off the street.’ Realistic recommendations for area restriction strategies are made that lead to more inclusive approaches that are considerate of needs and concerns of all interest groups linked to the “prostitution problem.”

“Area restriction” is the umbrella term used for this thesis to consider geography-based, individually- assigned orders issued by criminal justice agents to remove and restrict targets from particular city spaces. This research focuses on 13 Canadian cities that use arrest-and-release area restriction strategies to managing street sex work(ers). Despite heavy criticism for their punitive nature, area restrictions have received little academic attention. This project takes an exploratory and descriptive approach to the issue in order to develop a platform for future research. Using qualitative, non-experimental methods it also critically analyzes the implementation, logic and reported impacts of the strategies while drawing implications for how area restrictions relate to citizenship statuses of sex workers by mapping exclusions onto the city. Multiple data sources were included but the most significant and compelling information comes from interviews with police officers and community agency workers. Findings suggest that area restriction strategies contribute to substantial social divides between sex workers and other community members, but also between sex workers and important services, resources and their community. At the same time, the strategy is reported as a “temporary relief” measure that is ineffective at lessening sex trade activity and often leads to displacement and dispersal of sex work(ers). However, collaborative efforts in some cities show promise for achieving goals of ‘helping sex workers off the street.’ Realistic recommendations for area restriction strategies are made that lead to more inclusive approaches that are considerate of needs and concerns of all interest groups linked to the “prostitution problem.”

“Area restriction” is the umbrella term used for this thesis to consider geography-based, individually- assigned orders issued by criminal justice agents to remove and restrict targets from particular city spaces. This research focuses on 13 Canadian cities that use arrest-and-release area restriction strategies to managing street sex work(ers). Despite heavy criticism for their punitive nature, area restrictions have received little academic attention. This project takes an exploratory and descriptive approach to the issue in order to develop a platform for future research. Using qualitative, non-experimental methods it also critically analyzes the implementation, logic and reported impacts of the strategies while drawing implications for how area restrictions relate to citizenship statuses of sex workers by mapping exclusions onto the city. Multiple data sources were included but the most significant and compelling information comes from interviews with police officers and community agency workers. Findings suggest that area restriction strategies contribute to substantial social divides between sex workers and other community members, but also between sex workers and important services, resources and their community. At the same time, the strategy is reported as a “temporary relief” measure that is ineffective at lessening sex trade activity and often leads to displacement and dispersal of sex work(ers). However, collaborative efforts in some cities show promise for achieving goals of ‘helping sex workers off the street.’ Realistic recommendations for area restriction strategies are made that lead to more inclusive approaches that are considerate of needs and concerns of all interest groups linked to the “prostitution problem.”

La présente étude vise à explorer l’univers de la cohabitation entre les activités prostitutionnelles de rue et résidentielles du quartier Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Précisément, elle s’attarde aux effets d’une telle pratique sur l’environnement du secteur résidentiel. Ancrée dans une perspective constructiviste, l’étude s’attarde aux discours de 35 acteurs-clés qui relatent leurs expériences de cohabitation. Ces acteurs sont des commerçants, des résidents du secteur, des intervenants de proximité ainsi que des travailleuses du sexe. À travers l’analyse d’entretiens et d’une centaine d’heures d’observations sur le terrain avec des agents du service de police de Montréal, l’étude expose les enjeux en matière de cohabitation, introduit l’idée d’une tolérance négociée et dresse un portrait de la narcoprostitution de rue, spécifique au quartier Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. À la lumière des résultats, on constate qu’il est difficile de dissocier les activités prostitutionnelles, des habitudes de toxicomanie. Précisément, la prostitution de rue, la présence de cracks house dans le secteur, la consommation et l’intoxication d’individus sur les voies publiques ainsi que l’attroupement de personnes au mode de vie underground sont tous des éléments, bien souvent inter-reliés, présentés par les acteurs interrogés. L’étude met en lumière les effets qu’ont ces éléments sur l’environnement résidentiel du quartier. / This study aims to explore the universe of the cohabitation of street prostitution and residential activities in the district of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The research specifically focusses on the impact of such practices on theresidential environment. Rooted in a phenomenological perspective, the study is based on the speech of 35 key players reporting their cohabitation experiences. These actors are merchants, residents of the area, proximity stakeholders as well as sex workers. Through the analysis of interviews and of a hundred hours of field observation in the company of Montreal Police Service officers, the study outlines the cohabitation-related issues, introduces the idea of anegotiated tolerance and portrays the street narcoprostitution specific to Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district. In the light of our observations, we understand that it is difficult to separate prostitution activities and addiction habits. More precisely, street prostitution, the presence of cracks houses, public consumption and intoxication of individuals as well as gatherings of underground lifestyle people are all elements which are very often inter-connected and pointed out by the interviewed actors. The study highlights the impacts of these elements on theresidential neighborhood.

À partir d’une recherche sur les lieux de prostitution de rue à Luxembourg, cette thèse propose une ethnographie des situations de prostitution de rue qui ne réduit pas cette dernière à un échange sexuel et monétaire. L’attention portée aux situations et interactions, aux contraintes et ressources avec lesquelles doivent composer les personnes qui se prostituent, amène à analyser les lieux de prostitution sous leurs dimensions humaine, sociale, matérielle, spatio-temporelle, réglementaire et productrices de sens.Or, appréhender la place de la prostitution dans la ville et dans la société appelle une perspective sociohistorique apte à mettre au jour les moyens par lesquels, dès les années 1990, les populations locales ont contribué à la mise en forme d’un « problème de la prostitution » nécessitant une intervention des pouvoirs publics, et en premier lieu des autorités communales. Sa prise en charge par les pouvoirs publics a mobilisé théories explicatives et jugements moraux, et a donné lieu à différentes formes d’action publique. Enfin, on montre comment l’imposition, au nom de l’ordre public, d’une distinction entre lieux interdits ou autorisés à l’exercice de la prostitution, et l’ensemble de rapports de force qui les traversent, amène les personnes qui se prostituent dans l’espace public à toujours renégocier un ordre social local. De manière transversale, cette thèse analyse les tensions sociales qui se cristallisent autour de l’articulation entre la sexualité et l’argent, d’une part, et leur visibilité sociale, d’autre part. / Based on a research about the places of street prostitution in Luxembourg City, this thesis offers an ethnography of its various situations without reducing prostitution to a mere sexual and monetary exchange. Through paying attention to the situations and interactions, to the constraints and resources with which people who prostitute themselves have to deal with, this work examines the places of prostitution under their human, social, material, spatio-temporal, regulatory and meaningful dimensions.Yet, to understand the place of prostitution in the city and in the society, it is necessary to call on a socio-historical perspective so as to reveal by what means the local populations, as early as the 1990s, contributed to the formation of a “prostitution problem” that required the intervention of the authorities, and primarily of the local governments. Its resolution by the authorities involved explanatory theories and moral judgments, and gave rise to diverse forms of public action. Finally, it is shown how imposing, on behalf of public order, a distinction between forbidden or authorized places for prostituting, and the entire balance of power passing through them, lead the people who prostitute themselves in the public space to continually renegotiate a local social order. Across the board, this thesis studies the social tensions that crystallize around the articulation between sexuality and money, on the one hand, and their social visibility, on the other hand.