Emily Pickthall

Profile

I am a final year PhD student in the Department of Sociology and recipient of an Economic and Social Research Council PhD Studentship (2021-2026). My PhD examines the nature and lived experience of sex work in the United Kingdom - in particular, the relations between sex work and other jobs, employment, livelihoods and relationships. I have previously researched social histories, discourses and political praxis of sex workers' rights and activist movements with the English Collective of ProstitutesLink opens in a new window and the Bishopsgate InstituteLink opens in a new window.

I take an interdisciplinary approach to research, with interest in developing arts-based and creative research methods in the social sciences.

I previously studied a BA in English at the University of Exeter, in addition to an MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts and an MA in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Research

My PhD explores the nature and lived experience of UK-based sex work. I primarily focus on indoor full-service sex work (FSSW), whilst factoring in other areas of the sex industry that include stripping, camming and content subscription platforms (e.g. OnlyFans).

The study aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of sex work that considers grey areas between empowerment and exploitation. This is at a time when more individuals are entering the UK sex industry, often due to financial hardship and inadequacies with employment in formal labour markets (such as student debt, or low-paid and precarious jobs).

Drawing on scholarship that examines sex work as a complex and ambivalent lived experience, and that situates sex work on a continuum with other social, sexual and economic activities, I ask:

• What kind of work is sex work?
• To what extent - and how - can sex work be compared to other kinds of work and labour?
• What are reasons for individuals entering the sex industry beyond force and coercion - and how might these overlap with desires, drives and duties intrinsic to the worker’s lifeworld?
• How is space, place and labour time constructed and experienced by sex workers?

To navigate these questions, I follow a series of methods that include semi-structured interviews, object and multimedia elicited interviews and archival work with sex workers and sex worker rights activists.

My PhD is supervised by Dr Cath LambertLink opens in a new window and Dr Lynne PettingerLink opens in a new window.Link opens in a new window and Link opens in a new window

Teaching

2025/2026

TBA

 

2023/24

SO242 Designing and Conducting Social Research

SO120 Researching Society and Culture

 

ESRC Overseas Institutional Visit (OIV)

In 2025, I successfully applied for an OIV and visited Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (Aotearoa), between Feb 2025-April 2025 as a visiting scholar. I was hosted by Dr Lynzi Armstrongin the School of Social and Cultural Studies.

As part of my tasks during the visit, I conducted the following:

·1hr guest lecture on PhD research findings as part of the School Seminar series

·1hr lecture to undergraduate students (CRIM 210 Beyond Crime: Understanding Social Harm)

·2hr small group seminar for postgraduate students (CRIM 421 Special Topic: Sexuality, Gender, and Harm)

·Collaborative networking with scholars in the field, as well as the grassroots New Zealand Prostitutes Collective 

 

Conference presentations

"‘What kind of work is sex work?’: Examining sex work on a continuum of everyday labour practice and lived experience". Criminology in an Interdisciplinary Age - Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK, Postgraduate Conference. 28th May-29th May 2025.

"Sex Work Activism in the UK: An Introduction to the English Collective of Prostitutes". Warwick Anti-Sexism Society talk. University of Warwick. 30th November 2023.

"Beyond the ‘Happy Hooker’: Politics of Refusal and Ambivalence in the English Collective of Prostitutes Archive (1975-2019), Bishopsgate Institute". Sex in Contemporary Media Conference. University of Warwick. 4th-6th October 2023.

"Living Under the "Third Name" Sex Work(er-) Activists, Vulnerable Bodies and Negotiating Subjectivities". Showcasing Sex Work Research - BSA Gender and Feminism Study Group Postgraduate Conference. Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham. 2023.

"On Living Labour: Sex Work, the Precariat and (False) Lines of Flight". Law and Society Association Conference. Washington D.C., USA. 30th May-2nd June 2019.

"From Living Labour to Living Currency". Sex Work Research Hub Annual Postgraduate Research Conference. Swansea University, Swansea. 25th January 2019.

 

Professional qualifications

·2025 - Academic and Professional Pathway for Postgraduate Researchers who Teach (APP PGR): Advance HE externally accredited programme with recognised Higher Education teaching status.

 

Selected activities

Graduate Teaching Assistants/Sessional Teaching Committee representative for Department of Sociology, University of Warwick (2023/24)

Organiser and facilitator of 'Objects of Labour: A Creative and Material Research Methods Workshop' (November 2022)

Learning Development Assistant for Creative Research Methods Learning Community, EUTOPIA AllianceLink opens in a new window (2022-April 2023)

Social Sciences Editorial Assistant for Routledge, Taylor & Francis (January 2020-July 2021)

Nominee for the South London GalleryLink opens in a new window Postgraduate Residency (2017)

Areas of expertise

• Sex work, gender and sexuality studies
• Employment and labour studies
• Activism and social movement studies
• Qualitative methods
• Arts-based and creative research methodologies