Human Subjects is a collection of eight short stories that explore the role of identity, otherness, and personhood in contemporary life. Two sex workers try to buy new faces after a botched plastic surgery, a young girl struggles to find her place in a religious sweat cult, mixed race orphans commune with ghosts in a Korean orphanage, best friends embark on a road trip across America in search of a mother. Human Subjects works to tell stories about deeply felt wants and desires from perspectives at the margins, caught in a state of in between. This collection grapples with what it means to be a subject, and what it means to be subjected.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Social Work))

L’épidémie de VIH en Guyane est souvent présentée comme généralisée. Cependant, certains groupes semblent plus particulièrement touchés. Parmi ces groupes vulnérables, les travailleuses du sexe tiennent une place particulière compte tenu de la fréquence des rapports transactionnels dans la région. Ces échanges économico‐sexuels dépassent les frontières puisque de nombreux clients venant de Guyane rencontrent des travailleuses du sexe à Oiapoque, ville brésilienne frontalière. Malgré l'importance potentielle de la prostitution dans la dynamique de l'épidémie VIH, peu de données existent sur le sujet dans la région.L’objectif principal de cette étude était de répondre à ce manque de données et de décrire les connaissances, attitudes et pratiques des travailleuses du sexe en Guyane et à Oiapoque afin de pouvoir ajuster au mieux les actions de prévention.Les résultats des enquêtes menées en Guyane et à Oiapoque en 2010 et 2011 ont mis en lumière un certain nombre de faits favorisant la progression de l’épidémie au sein des travailleuses du sexe, mais également favorisant la diffusion de l’épidémie en population générale. Ainsi l’utilisation du préservatif n’était pas toujours adéquate et bien qu’elle était constante avec les clients, elle l’était beaucoup moins avec les partenaires intimes, dans un contexte de multipartenariat fréquent. Le taux de dépistage à Oiapoque était particulièrement faible également. Au‐delà de l’aspect individuel, le cadre structurel impactait clairement la vulnérabilité des travailleuses du sexe. Ainsi, la non‐disponibilité des traitements à Oiapoque, la précarité dans laquelle se trouvent les personnes et le cadre législatif des deux pays représentent des obstacles majeurs à la prise en charge destravailleuses du sexe.Différents niveaux de lecture sont nécessaires pour essayer de percevoir la complexité des comportements face au risque de transmission du VIH parmi les travailleuses du sexe. C’est à chacun de ces niveaux qu’il faut envisager la prévention, et non plus au seul niveau individuel, pour qu’elle puisse être efficace. Cette prévention doit, elle‐même, être envisagée plus globalement pour apporter une réponse efficace à l’épidémie de VIH en combinant des éléments de prévention comportementale, biomédicale et structurelle. / The HIV epidemic in French Guiana is often described as generalized. However, some vulnerable groups appear particularly affected. Among these groups, female sex workers hold a special place because of the frequency of transactional relationships in the region. These sexual‐economic exchanges go beyond the borders since many customers from French Guiana solicit female sex workers in Oiapoque, the Brazilian border town. Despite the potential importance of sex work in the HIV epidemic, there is scarce data on the subject in the area.The main objective of this study was to address this knowledge gap and to describe the knowledge, attitudes and practices among female sex workers in French Guiana and Oiapoque in order to optimize and subsequently evaluate prevention.The results of the survey conducted in French Guiana and Oiapoque in 2010 and 2011 highlighted a number of events promoting the spread of the epidemic among female sex workers, but also promoting the spread of the epidemic in the general population. Thus, condom use was not always adequate. Although it was consistent with the customers, it was much less with intimate partners, in a common multiple sexual partnerships context. The HIV screening rate was particularly low in Oiapoque as well. Beyond the individual aspect, the structural framework clearly impacted the vulnerability of female sex workers. Thus, the non‐availability of treatment in Oiapoque, the precariousness in which people live and the legislative framework of the two countries are major barriers to female sex workers’ support.Different levels of understanding are necessary to disentangle the complexity of behaviors facing the risk of transmission of HIV among female sex workers. Prevention must be considered at each level, not only at the individual level, to be effective. Furthermore, prevention must be considered more generally to provide an efficient response to the HIV epidemic by combining behavioral, biomedical and structural prevention elements.

This project draws on aspects of research into the plight of women prostitutes working in Lal Batti areas of India. The project considers historical, contemporary and personal texts that form the basis of a creative synthesis. This synthesis is manifest in the design of five fabric-based artworks that seek to interpret issues of manipulation, entrapment, belonging, spirituality and demise. The project is located beyond the boundaries of fashion design. However, it involves an artistic fusion of garment construction, fabric and surface treatment. In doing this, the thesis seeks to give ‘voice’ to a political commentary that reaches beyond commercial uses of garments for display and protection.

Interpersonal violence and abuse in New Zealand is so widespread it is considered a normative experience. Mental health nurses witnessing the inscribed effects of abuse on service users are lead to consider whether we are dealing with a breakdown of the mind or a breakdown in social or cultural connection (Stuhlmiller, 2003). The purpose of this research is to examine the cultural context which makes violence and abuse against women and children possible. In 2003, the public debate on prostitution law reform promised to open a space in which discourses on sexuality and violence, practices usually private or hidden, would publicly emerge. Everyday discourses relating to prostitution law reform reported in the New Zealand Herald newspaper in the year 2003 were analysed using Foucauldian and feminist post-structural methodological approaches. Foucauldian discourse analysis emphasises the ways in which power is enmeshed in discourse, enabling power relations and hegemonic practices to be made visible. The research aims were to develop a complex, comprehensive analysis of the media discourses, to examine the construction of harm in the media debate, to examine the ways in which the cultural hegemony of dominant groups was secured and contested and to consider the role of mental health nurses as agents of emancipatory political change. Mental health promotion is mainly a socio-political practice and the findings suggest that mental health nurses could reconsider their professional role, to participate politically as social activists, challenging the social order thereby reducing the human suffering which interpersonal violence and abuse carries in its wake.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to broadly determine the influence of the Constitution on the South African labour environment and to do so from the perspective of the labour rights of workers who fall outside the ambit of the traditional common law contract of employment. An examination of the Constitution&rsquo / s influence will involve a consideration of various aspects including: (i) The evolution of the concept of employee and the contract of employment / (ii) The impact of the Constitution on South African labour relations and labour laws / (iii) The purposive interpretation of legislation / (iv) An outline of the &lsquo / Kylie&rsquo / CCMA ruling and Labour Court judgment / (v) The current legal position of prostitution in South Africa / (vi) The requirements for a meaningful transformation in the legal treatment of sex workers particularly as regards their entitlement to the protections afforded to vulnerable workers provided in the LRA.</p>

The problems that sex industry brings have existed in human¡¦s society for a long time without being eliminated. Except for some licensed prostitutes (sex workers), sex trading is prohibited in Taiwan by law. However, neglecting the impossibility of eliminating sex industry intentionally will lead to the encouragement of underground prostitution and related social problems of public security. After the Council of Grand Justices made the interpretation of No. 666, the Social Order Maintenance Act was amended allowing local government to set up and manage red light districts. It stipulates that any sex trade outside of the designated areas will be penalized, and sex trade inside the areas will be exempted from penalty. However, local governments are opposed to setting up the red light districts, which disillusion the expectation that disadvantage workers had to solve the difficulty they have encountered. Due to the considerable accounts of underground sex industry and scarcity of effective result of banning it, I want to analyze whether the problems are brought by the deficiency of the legal system and managing policy with this study. Based on the 5 major frameworks of administration law, including the legal principles, administrative organization, administrative authority, administrative remedy and administrative supervision, this study aims at analyzing the legal system of managing the sex industry in Taiwan. Through researching with the 5 major frameworks, the reason why sex industry can not be run like other industries has been found out. Due to the traditional and conservative perspective of the public, sex industry has been regarded as a low class industry without ethics, so that a comprehensive legal system of managing sex industry can not be made, let alone protecting the right to work, the right of equality and the right to exist of sex workers and the balanced development of sex industry. The legal system of managing sex industry has not been adhering to the principle of legal reservation. The ineffectiveness of the scale of administrative organization, the fuzzy space of administrative remedy, the scarcity and insufficiency of the design and practice of administrative authority and the undeveloped interior and exterior controlling function of administrative supervision are all left to be adjusted by the government and the society with a profound discussion and a comprehensive mechanism. Finally, based on the 5 major frameworks of administrative law, this study will provide comprehensive suggestions as followings. A. Manage sex industry with the believing of goodness of human nature. Regard this industry as a regular category and respect its equity right given by the Constitution. B. Learn from the effective managing method from abroad to decriminalize the trading relationship between customers and providers and also to ban the ¡§third party¡¨ for exploiting with strict regulations. C. Establish a managing law for sex industry with coherence in the nation and to regulate authorized local governments to manage the industry. D. Administrate by the managing concept of administrative guidance and administrative contract in lieu of administration with public power. E. Enforce regional cooperative administration with related organizations and its participation in the management of sex industry. F. Design administrative penalty which is awarding the good and punishing the bad with public announcement. G. Strengthen the opinion exchanging on the Internet for supervising the management and starting a quick and effective administrative remedy by public will and the responds of sex workers. H. Facilitate the managing system of interior controlling to prevent the abuse of administrative authority by imitating universities evaluation. Followed by the above-mentioned suggestions, an appropriate adjustment is expected to create a balanced environment and development for sex workers and sex industry.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to broadly determine the influence of the Constitution on the South African labour environment and to do so from the perspective of the labour rights of workers who fall outside the ambit of the traditional common law contract of employment. An examination of the Constitution&rsquo / s influence will involve a consideration of various aspects including: (i) The evolution of the concept of employee and the contract of employment / (ii) The impact of the Constitution on South African labour relations and labour laws / (iii) The purposive interpretation of legislation / (iv) An outline of the &lsquo / Kylie&rsquo / CCMA ruling and Labour Court judgment / (v) The current legal position of prostitution in South Africa / (vi) The requirements for a meaningful transformation in the legal treatment of sex workers particularly as regards their entitlement to the protections afforded to vulnerable workers provided in the LRA.</p>

HIV in Karnataka, south India disproportionately burdens female sex workers (FSWs) and men who have sex with men (MSM). The best long-term strategy for managing the global HIV epidemic might involve a preventive vaccine; however, vaccine availability cannot guarantee its acceptability. An exploratory, cross-sectional study was conducted among frontline health service providers (HSPs) working with MSM/FSWs in relation to HIV-related health services in Karnataka. Face-to-face structured interviews were performed to better understand potential barriers/facilitators to acceptability/uptake of a future HIV vaccine among MSM/FSW communities. Descriptive analyses explored HSPs’ perceptions of vaccine acceptability/uptake and likelihood to recommend an HIV vaccine. Although HSPs mentioned numerous potential barriers to future HIV vaccine acceptability/uptake, most believed that MSM/FSWs would be willing to receive the vaccine to protect their health and avoid HIV. HSPs reported being very likely to recommend the vaccine, however young age of potential vaccine recipients negatively affected likelihood to recommend.

The purpose of this thesis is to broadly determine the influence of the Constitution on the South African labour environment and to do so from the perspective of the labour rights of workers who fall outside the ambit of the traditional common law contract of employment. An examination of the Constitution&rsquo;s influence will involve a consideration of various aspects including: (i) The evolution of the concept of employee and the contract of employment; (ii) The impact of the Constitution on South African labour relations and labour laws; (iii) The purposive interpretation of legislation; (iv) An outline of the 'Kylie' CCMA ruling and Labour Court judgment; (v) The current legal position of prostitution in South Africa; (vi) The requirements for a meaningful transformation in the legal treatment of sex workers particularly as regards their entitlement to the protections afforded to vulnerable workers provided in the LRA. / Magister Philosophiae - MPhil