This article was originally published in UCSB's ' The Current '.
Free trade agreements have done more than move goods across borders. They’ve also shaped how societies define and regulate bodies, identities and belonging. International trade policies, especially the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), have influenced not only global markets but also cultural norms, legal systems and public debates around sexuality and migration across North America.
In her new book “Queer Traffic: Sex, Panic, Free Trade” (Duke University Press, 2025), Jennifer Tyburczy , a UC Santa Barbara feminist studies scholar, traces the intersections of global economics and social regulation from the 1980s to the present. She argues that the rise of “trafficking” discourse — from sex trafficking to drug trafficking — reveals how economic and moral anxieties often reinforce each other, shaping who is criminalized and who is protected.