Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Anthony, Mabel “Biddie”. 1999. “An Oral Narrative Recorded By Courtney Reid.” West Side Oral Narrative Project: Transcribing Discourse And Diversity In Saratoga Springs, New York, Annotated Transcript No. 5, April 28, 2021, Skidmore College

Transcribing Discourse and Diversity in Saratoga Springs, New York

Mable “Biddie” Anthony (1916-2015) moved from Pittsburgh to Saratoga Springs in 1940, when her husband, Marvin “Butch” Anthony began managing the Hill Top Inn on Congress Street. Biddie poignantly reflects on sweeping changes she saw in the city over her lifetime. She recounts her first impressions of Saratoga’s winters, the summer crowds, and how she learned about the city’s sporting district, which included musical entertainment, bars and restaurants, dancing, gambling, and brothels. From her experiences of living and working on Congress Street, Biddie creates a mental map of homes and businesses, including Hattie’s Chicken Shack, the Golden Grill, and Jack’s …

Beyond Choice: An Intersectional Analysis Of Identity And Labor In Online Sex Work, Shawna F. Felkins

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

This intersectional project seeks to understand the complex labor, social lives, and community building of online sex workers. Building on the work of foundational sex work researchers, this project utilizes in-depth interviews, a survey, social media posts, and published writing and research from online sex workers to understand how marginalization and identity impacts participation and success in online sex work. Providing analysis on how race, gender, class, and ability intersect in the digital sexual marketplace, this project critiques the rise of neoliberal feminism in sex work spaces that stems from the centering of white and otherwise privileged sex workers using …

Seeking Friends With Benefits In A Tourism-Based Sexual Economy: Interrogating The Gambian Sexscape, Mariama Jaiteh

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation engages with the driving motivations behind the actions of all those involved in The Gambia’s tourism-based sexual economy: the Gambian and other West African male and female sex workers, the Global North (habitually European) male and female tourists, the Gambian and expatriate Lebanese bar and restaurant owners, the Gambian state, and the semesters (members of the Gambian diaspora on vacation in The Gambia). It presents thick ethnographic accounts of interactions with Gambians and tourists, as they form temporary couples or friendships for the duration of tourists’ vacations, and sometimes for longer. This ethnography-rich dissertation pays careful attention to …

Ordinary 'Worthiness': Sex Work, Police Raids, And Human Rights Violence In Sonagachhi, Simanti Dasgupta

Simanti Dasgupta

Based upon ethnographic research with Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), a grass-roots sex workers organization in Sonagachhi, the iconic red light district in Kolkata, India, this paper explores the relationship between police raids and human rights violation. It especially focuses on the nature of violence initiated by the construction of “corrupt” evidence to justify a raid, which in this case is not solely a state initiative; the police usually work in tandem with other rescue missions such as the International Justice mission (IJM). The raid involves a practice and a narrative commonly referred to by both the police and the …

Overcoming Ideology: Examining The Tension Between Sex Work And Anti-Human Trafficking Advocacy, Emily R. Williams

Masters Theses

Human trafficking has become a national conversation and concern. Grassroots organizations designed to combat human trafficking spring up rapidly and help shape public perception on what trafficking is – and what it isn’t. Drawing on participant observation and indepth interviewing, I speak with anti-trafficking advocates determined to eradicate human trafficking and sex workers who prefer to stay in their profession. This thesis will largely explore the unintended consequences of well-meaning advocacy, and the tension between their views on the sex industry and the views from within the sex industry. I aim to use this work not only as a local …

Ordinary 'Worthiness': Sex Work, Police Raids, And Human Rights Violence In Sonagachhi, Simanti Dasgupta

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Based upon ethnographic research with Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), a grass-roots sex workers organization in Sonagachhi, the iconic red light district in Kolkata, India, this paper explores the relationship between police raids and human rights violation. It especially focuses on the nature of violence initiated by the construction of “corrupt” evidence to justify a raid, which in this case is not solely a state initiative; the police usually work in tandem with other rescue missions such as the International Justice mission (IJM). The raid involves a practice and a narrative commonly referred to by both the police and the …

"No Other Choice": A Baseline Study On The Vulnerabilities Of Males In The Sex Trade In Chiang Mai, Thailand, Jarrett D. Davis, Elliot Glotfelty, Glenn Miles

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Social and cultural norms often assume men and boys to be inherently strong and/or invulnerable to sexual exploitation. As a result, sexual violence against men and boys is often ignored in programs and policy, with the efforts of organizations providing for the needs of male victims often left under-supported. Among the studies that have been conducted on males, most have primarily focused on sexual health, seeing males as agents of their own lives and careers, and largely ignored holistic needs and vulnerabilities. This study attempts to take a holistic approach to understanding the needs and vulnerabilities of young males working …

Sexual-Economic Entanglement: A Feminist Ethnography Of Migrant Sex Work Spaces In Kenya, Megan Lowthers

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The recent anti-trafficking fervour as well as the moral panic surrounding prostitution has given rise to large gaps within migrant sex work research, especially in Africa. Despite this, sexual commerce remains a viable economic activity for many women in East Africa, a region where variable migration patterns are central to everyday social, cultural, and economic life. Framed by anthropology, feminist geography, and postcolonial theory, this research examines migrant female sex workers’ everyday experiences across time, space, place, and scale from one ethnographic location in Naivasha, Kenya. In order to explore how different migration patterns and types of sexual-economic exchange are …

Sovereign Silence: Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act And Sex Work In Sonagachhi, Simanti Dasgupta

Simanti Dasgupta

Drawing upon ethnographic work with a grassroots sex workers’ organization in Calcutta, Durbar Samanwaya Samiti (Durbar), this article analyzes the relationship between subalternity and silence. I discuss how sex workers, especially new entrants, use silence as a subaltern strategy to resist state and non-state surveillance intended to oppose trafficking. The increased surveillance is a direct result of the global anti-trafficking narrative, led mainly by the United States, in which developing countries, like India, adopt measures to avoid being downgraded in the United States’ Trafficking in Persons Report. I contend that these national and international efforts have led to a quandary …

Sovereign Silence: Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act And Sex Work In Sonagachhi, Simanti Dasgupta

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Drawing upon ethnographic work with a grassroots sex workers’ organization in Calcutta, Durbar Samanwaya Samiti (Durbar), this article analyzes the relationship between subalternity and silence. I discuss how sex workers, especially new entrants, use silence as a subaltern strategy to resist state and non-state surveillance intended to oppose trafficking. The increased surveillance is a direct result of the global anti-trafficking narrative, led mainly by the United States, in which developing countries, like India, adopt measures to avoid being downgraded in the United States’ Trafficking in Persons Report. I contend that these national and international efforts have led to a quandary …

Mobility, Latino Migrants, And The Geography Of Sex Work: Using Ethnography In Public Health Assessments, Thurka Sangaramoorthy, Karen Kroeger

Thurka Sangaramoorthy

Girl, Woman, Lover, Mother: Towards A New Understanding Of Child Prostitution Among Young Devadasi Sex Workers In Rural Karnataka, India, Treena Orchard

Dr. Treena Orchard

The emotive issue of child prostitution is at the heart of international debates over ‘trafficking’ in women and girls, the “new slave trade”, and how these phenomena are linked with globalization, sex tourism, and expanding transnational economies. However, young sex workers, particularly those in the ‘third world’, are often represented through tropes of victimization, poverty, and “backwards” cultural traditions, constructions that rarely capture the complexity of the girls’ experiences and the role that prostitution plays in their lives. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with girls and young women who are part of the Devadasi (servant/slave of the God) system of sex …