Victimhood and actorhood: constructions of agency in anti-trafficking advocacy

Abstract

This study seeks to advance understanding of how anti-trafficking organization websites construct victims' agency, and to engage in critical analyses of these constructions. Using content analysis of 264 websites for organizations which advocate for adult victims of human trafficking in the United States, I inductively identify themes in the ways victimhood and agency are portrayed. The use of 'survivor stories', definitions, images, and relational comparisons with other actors were several of the most common ways in which organizations represented victimhood, and I find that the majority of organizations construct victims' agency as insufficient and misused for self-advocacy. To interpret my findings, I turn to neo-institutional theory to understand how victims' agency is constructed, and patterned in the same way, across the majority of anti-trafficking organizations.