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••• Maggie O’Neill •••

Research Recommendations from the Collaboration
of PA and PAR

The research that took place through the arts workshops and combining PAR and PA
let to a range of recommendations, some of which have been carried through. The
team agreed that there is a need for agencies and funders to support community arts
initiatives which continue to give voice to local concerns regarding safety and con-
sult people about solutions. It was also agreed that a combination of socio-cultural
research and community arts can be used to evaluate change and a long-term arts
consultation/evaluation project could be developed. It was also felt that research
should continue to support initiatives that challenge stereotypes, explore issues, and
also inform and educate young people about the dangers of prostitution. The Arts
can be shown to build self-esteem, and therefore it makes sense to commission more
arts projects which offer opportunities to all young people to develop their creative
potential and enable them to make positive choices. Cultural opportunities and
cultural industries, arts-based training could also be tailored to the needs of sex
workers. This would give the two groups marketable arts skills and be integrated into
a programme of alternative options – initiatives developed from a grass roots drop-in
in collaboration with sex worker projects, local colleges and community arts.
Together the three groups wanted to see the following recommendations actioned:

Stop kerbcrawlers harassing women and young people.
Address prostitution and kerb crawling so children can ‘retain innocence and be safe’.
Create a tolerance zone and allow women to work off street.
Improve safety on street: street lighting and more police in evidence.
Change the law. ‘The police can’t physically do any more.’
Improve support for drug and alcohol problems.
Address the issue of pimps and pimping.
Address violence against women.
Provide support and options to women working on street.
Acknowledge women working as prostitutes as ordinary women – as human beings –
as mothers and daughters. Work together to create change!

Conclusion

Through a combination of socio-cultural research (cultural sociology); lived expe-
rience (life stories); and practice/praxis (live art and photographic forms) defined
as ethno-mimesis, this chapter has explored (with a view to developing better
understanding across the widest possible audience – lay and academic) some of
the key themes and issues evolving from feminist research with sex workers and
communities affected by prostitution. Renewed methodologies which incorporate

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