Sex Work Matters Conference in NYC

[+ Tom Isern]

Sex Work Matters: Beyond Divides

 

PROGRAM

March 20, 2006

 

This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.

For registration, please send an email to [email protected]

with "registration" in the subject line.

 

 

 

Thursday, March 30

 

Morning sessions to be held at The New School

(Lang Student Center, 55 West 13th Street)

and afternoon sessions at CUNY Graduate Center

(365 Fifth Avenue, between 34th and 35th Street)

 

 

9am Breakfast (Lang Student Center, Lobby)

 

 

9.30 to 10:30

 

Opening Panel:

Sex Work Matters: Opportunities and Challenges in Sex Work Activism and Research

Lang Student Center, 2nd floor

 

Moderator: Melissa Ditmore, Network of Sex Work Projects

Invited Panelists:

Barb Brents and Kate Hausbeck, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Giulia Garofalo and Jesper Bryngemark, European Conference on Sex

Work, Human Rights, Labor and Migration

Maggie O’Neill, Loughborough University, UK

Claire Thiboutot and Jenn Clamen, STELLA, Montreal

 

 

 

10.45 to 12.15am Morning Panels

 

What's Money Got to Do With It?

Sex Work in Socioeconomic Context

Conference Room 101A, 1st floor

 

Moderator: Jennifer Olmsted, Drew University

 

Invited Panelists:

Alice Cepeda, University of Houston

A Paradox of Autonomy and Risk: Substance Use Demands, Negotiations and Dependency Among Mexican Sexoservidoras

 

Giulia Garofalo, University of East London

Radical Political Economy of Sex Work

 

Melissa Petro, New School University

"I Did It... For the Money": Sex Work as a Means to Socio-Economic Opportunity (3 Case Studies)

 

Sudhir Venkatesh and Eva Rosen, Center for Urban Research and Policy, Columbia University

A "Perversion" of Choice: Sex Work in Chicago's Urban Ghetto

 

Jo Weldon, Performer and Activist

Show Me the Money: On the Absence of Financial Psychology in Studies of Sex Work

 

 

 

 

 

Roundtable Discussion on

Multiple Roles: Sex Workers, Activists and Academics

Lang Student Center, 2nd floor

 

 

Moderators:

Melissa Gira, Board of Directors Member, Lusty Lady/SEIU Local 790

Audacia Ray, Executive Editor, $pread Magazine

Invited Participants:

Robyn Few, Executive Director, Sex Workers Outreach Project

Carol Leigh, BAYSWAN San Francisco

Jessica Melusine, boa (a journal of new #### culture)

Elizabeth Nanas, Wayne State University

 

LUNCH

 

 

 

Afternoon Sessions to be held at CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Ave, between 34th and 35th Street)

 

1.30 to 3pm Panels and Roundtables

 

Roundtable on Sex Work and the State

Room C204

 

Moderator: Ronald Weitzer, George Washington University, Wash. DC

 

Invited Participants:

Anne Dölemeyer, University of Leipzig, Germany

Of Poor Girls, Empowered Selves and Deviant Subjects: Constructing and Regulating Sex Workers

 

Majda Hrzenjak, Peace Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia and Karin Tertinegg, Vienna University, Austria

Sex Work or Trafficking? Prostitution Policies in Central and Southern Europe – A Puzzle of Framing

 

Julia O’Connell Davidson and Caitlin Farrow, University of Nottingham, UK

Will the Real Victim Please Stand Up? ‘Trafficking,’ Immigration Policy and the Absence of Minimum Labor Standards in the UK Sex Sector

 

Maggie O’Neill, Loughborough University, UK and Jane Pitcher, Staffordshire University

Sex Work, Communities and Public Policy in the UK

 

Patricia Kelly, Quinnipiac University, Hamden CT

Regulating Sex, Regulating Women: The Case of Mexico’s Galactic Zone

 

Yael Symonds-Yoaz, Tel Aviv University, Israel

From "Prostitute" to "Trafficked Woman": An Analysis of the Construction of Sexuality and Femininity in Israeli Legal Discourse

 

 

 

Policing Violence and Sex Workers

Room C205

 

Moderator: Juhu Thukral, Urban Justice Center, New York

Invited Panelists:

Elizabeth Cohen and Heather Latham, Rape Crisis Center, Lowell, MA

Kristen Freeland and Jennifer Ramirez, Sex Worker Project, Urban Justice Center, New York

Remy Kharbanda and Andrea Ritchie, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, New York

Raquel Osborne, National University of Education at Distance, Madrid

Catherine Poulcallec-Gordon, SIG (Social Intervention Group, Columbia University School of Social Work)

 

 

 

3.15 to 4.45pm Panels and Roundtables

 

Researching Sex Work: Issues in Methodology

Room C203

 

Moderator: Don Kulick, Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, NYU

 

Invited Panelists:

David S. Bimbi, Center for HIV Education, Studies and Training (CHEST)

Researching Male Sex Workers: Biases, Beliefs and Bad Science

 

Juline Koken, CHEST

The Meaning of the ####: How Feminist Theories of Female Sexual Agency Shape Research Methodology in the Study of Sex Work

 

Alix Lutnick, University of California San Francisco and St. James

The SWEAT Project: Our Process of Learning Where the Hurdles Are and How to Jump Them

 

Nenad Senic, Western Michigan University

Sex Workers as Primary Subjects in Studies of Human Trafficking, Prostitution and Pornography: Empirical and Methodological Rationale

 

 

 

 

Roundtable Discussion on

Sex Worker Outreach and Activism

Room C204

 

 

Moderator: Shane Luitjens, HOOK

 

Invited Participants:

Katie Aldworth, GiGi Thomas and Ryan Shanahan, HIPS, Washington DC

Grace Chang, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, UC Santa Barbara with Dawn Passar, Exotic Dancer’s Alliance, San Francisco

Camila Gelpi-Acosta and Dalia Heller, CitiWide Harm Reduction, NYC

Michael Hendricks and Claire Thiboutot, STELLA, Montreal Canada

Mazrul Islam, Rehabilitation Center for Prostitutes and Rootless Children (PARC), Chittagong, Bangladesh

 

 

Issues of Identity and Intimacy in Sex Work

Room C205

 

Moderator: L.H.M. Ling, New School University

 

Invited Panelists:

Mindy S. Bradley, University of Arkansas

To Love, Honor and Strip: Romantic Relationships and Adjustment Strategies in Exotic Dance Careers

 

Kerwin Kaye, New York University

Runaway Prostitutes and Gang Bangers: Representing Street Masculinities

 

Renate Ruhne, Technical University Darmstadt, Germany

The Spatio-Social Control of Prostitution/ Sex Work in German Cities as a Gender Issue

 

Elizabeth Ricks, Roosevelt University, Chicago

Power Play: Gender and Power in Commercial BDSM

 

Mashrur Shahid Hossain, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh

Hijra and Enforced (ab)Normalcy: Re-Appropriating Interpellated Identity Through Sex Work

 

 

 

5.30 to 7.30pm

 

CLOSING ROUNDTABLE

Decriminalization and Beyond

Sociology Lounge, 6th floor

 

 

Moderator: Julia O’Connell Davidson, University of Nottingham, UK

 

Presentations:

Jesper Bryngemark, University of Lund, Sweden

Helen Mason, New Zealand Prostitutes Collective

Juhu Thukral, Urban Justice Center, New York

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Directions

 

Arriving at The New School, Lang Student Center, 55 West 13th Street (near 6th Avenue) by subway:

 

F,V trains to 14th Street. Exit and walk south one block on 6th Avenue to 13th Street, turn left.

A,B,C,D trains to West 4th Street. Walk north on 6th Avenue to 13th Street, turn right.

1,2,3,9 trains to 14th Street. Walk east on 14th Street to 6th Avenue, south to 13th Street.

4,5,6,N,R,Q,W trains to 14th Street Union Square. Walk west to 5th Avenue, south to 13th Street and west to 55 West 13th (near 6th Ave).

Directions from The New School to CUNY Graduate Center

 

Afternoon sessions will be held at CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue between 34th and 35th Street. To arrive by subway, exit the 55 West 13th Street building to the left, and turn left again at the corner of 6th Avenue and 13th Street. Walk one block north to 14th Street and take the F or V train (orange line) uptown to 34th Street. From the 34th Street station, walk east on 34th Street to Fifth Avenue. The Graduate Center is across the street from the Empire State Building.