Beneath the Red Umbrella

Beneath the Red Umbrella blends academic research with the intimacy of storytelling in a genre-crossing graphic novel. At the heart of the story are three university students, Selina, Jaz, and Julie, whose evolving friendship unfolds over the course of an academic year. Through honest, sometimes uncomfortable conversations, they confront misconceptions and injustices faced by those providing sexual services. As the friends learn from each other, readers are drawn into a conversation about solidarity, justice, and the responsibilities of researchers. Interwoven with the narrative are two powerful academic arguments: first, that scholars working with marginalized communities – such as sex workers – must collaborate with them by supporting their goals and contributing to their empowerment; second, that the everyday injustices faced by sex workers are rooted in deeper epistemic and structural stigmas that frame them as "social deviants." Combining storytelling with a critique of stigma, criminalization, and institutional neglect, Beneath the Red Umbrella makes a case for the decriminalization and destigmatization of sex work and offers a model for how we can have difficult but necessary conversations about the demands of justice and human rights.