This doctoral dissertation is an experimental ethnographic investigation of the political consciousness and radical modes of livelihoods of marginalized "street" populations in a postconial Latin-American city, and of their connections with the transnational flows of capital, goods, peoples, and symbols of Global Capitalism. / Beginning in the streets of Salvador da Bahia in this place I call "Global Brazil", this inquiry presents a focal lens through which to examine how the structural and cultural forces of Late-Capitalism (Jameson, 1994) in a globalized world and the legacy of colonialism play out at the level of local and transnational actors' lived experiences (that is, for example, how these forces define, 'value', shape, hurt, confine, and displace bodies; but also how bodies dodge these forces, use these forces, reinvent themselves, or strategically perform their colonizer/colonized identities in a search for agency) and focuses, among other salient aspects, on the connections, dependencies, exploitation, violence, and desire between "street children", subaltern women, transnational prostitutes, (sex)tourists, sexpatriates (Seabrook, 1996) and other foreign men and women constructed as "gringo/as" in the context of Global Brazil. / Written as a collage between contemporary social, cultural, and political theory and an experimental ethnographic novel (Hecht, 2006), this project explores, or at best poses certain questions about contemporary forms of domination, survival, and resistance while hoping to shed light on undertheorized aspects of our globalized late-capitalist era by investigating the perspectives of local social actors on the structural, cultural and transnational forces in which their radical livelihoods are embedded. / Finally, as a work of political pedagogy, this investigation is also fundamentally preoccupied with the role of grassroots politics, research, ethnography, and global social actors---such as the author and other 'academics'--- who occupy positions of social, economic, political, and symbolic power, in collaborating with other segments of civil societies to work toward equitable alternatives to contemporary social suffering. / Intertwined with the many faces, voices and stories of this ethnography, thus, readers will encounter the voice, eyes, body, experience, reflections, interrogations, doubts, pains, fears, desire, violence, hopes, defeats, desperations, and resistance of the author, who, as an individual 'articulated' (Nelson, 1999) as white, male, gringo, intellectual, transcultural, geopolitically mobile, ethnographer, and flaneur in the context of this story, constitutes a character deeply implicated in the global flows and forces that are the object of this study.

Thèse diffusée initialement dans le cadre d'un projet pilote des Presses de l'Université de Montréal/Centre d'édition numérique UdeM (1997-2008) avec l'autorisation de l'auteur.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of Natal, Durban, 1999.

In 1900 Durban's white' society closely resembled its British counterpart. As in Britain an ideal of womanhood encompassed various generalisations concerning woman's true nature and purpose. Women were upheld as pure, chaste nurturers, and homemakers. In order that they might remain so fufil their destiny as wives and mothers, women were expected to remain in the private sphere, protected and supported by bread-winning husbands and fathers. Reality did not conform to the ideal Not all women were happy or satisfied by marriage and motherhood Large numbers of women were neither supported nor protected but forced to enter the public sphere, finding employment to secure a livelihood. They faced discrimination within an ideology which admitted them to the labour force under sufferance Women's work' was poorly paid, of low status and offered little opportunity for advancement. For these and other reasons some women became prostitutes . The prostitution issue was extremely controversial in the period under discussion. Ambiguities and contradictions inherent in the ideology of sexuality were revealed, as were various attempts to cope with these issues. Prostitutes were exploited sexually but this exploitation was at least lucrative. Continental womed probably earned more money in a year than a housewife, cleaner or factory 'drudge' ever saw in thei r lives . Many women therefore chose to go beyond the pale of society . Women resisted constraints placed upon them in a number of ways: they refused offers of marriage (supposedly their highest attainment); they left their husbands; they attempted to learn about and obtain forms of contraception, in direct opposition to the ideology of motherhood; they risked abortion despite the possibiIity of death, injury, prosecution or societal ostracism. Women attempted to improve their wages, working conditions and status. During the Great War' some of their ambi tions were real ised though most concessions gained were lost by 1920. Most of Durban women's organisations (all middle-class) accepted and were reflective of the ideals held by society. The Women's Enfranchisement League however, though working within the ideology of the time, challenged women's relegation to the private sphere. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1991.

This project focuses on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Cambodia that deal, either directly or indirectly, with sex work and sex workers. The NGOs outlined in this study have goals ranging from preventing Cambodian women from entering the commercial sex industry to empowering Cambodian sex workers through the formation of sex worker unions. Through the textual analysis of documents and web materials disseminated by these NGOs and from interviews with representatives from the NGOs, I seek to analyze how underlying assumptions about development and about the commercial sex industry shape the ways in which the personnel leading these NGOs think and act. Examining seven Phnom Penh-based organizations, I seek to answer the following research questions: What are the self-stated aims of NGOs in Cambodia that either directly or indirectly deal with the commercial sex industry in the country? What assumptions about development are embedded in the various programs being carried out by these NGOs? What assumptions about the nature of sex work are embedded in the various programs being carried out by NGOs working in Cambodia? What effect does the work of these organizations have on the lived realities of sex workers in Cambodia?

This study is constructed upon narratives of fourteen young women, who have been working in prostitution since they were street children in central Lima, and acknowledges their stigmatization in the Peruvian society, and how they challenge their socially constructed position. By combining narrative method with an intersectional analysis I have, through a multi-layered loupe, interpreted the young women’s interpretation of themselves and their social world. I will bring forward how these young women view their subordinate and stigmatized position through their narratives surrounding their bodies as shameful, culpable, sexual and fixed. This stigmatization is intersectional as it surrounds all parts of their lives and situatedness within the Peruvian society. This situatedness is complex, involving hierarchical structures that have been present in Peru since colonization and imperialism (cf. Wade 2009). In addition, I will bring forward how the young women engage in strategies to challenge this stigmatization by applying measures to increase their respectability (cf. Skeggs).

Spain underwent a series of tumultuous social and political changes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Prostitute women directly experienced these changes as fluctuations in their social and legal status within Spanish society. The years spanning from 1874 to 1931 are known as the Restoration, when the Bourbon monarchy was reinstalled under King Alfonso XII (1857-1885) after the crumbling of the First Spanish Republic (1873-1874). During this time, Spain experienced a period of growing nationalism and urbanization, and prostitution began to be interpreted as a threat to the nation in terms of public health and decency. Between 1923 and 1930, Spain was under the royally-sponsored military dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera (1870-1930). Primo de Rivera stifled much of the public discussion around the problem of prostitution. Spain later returned briefly to a Republican mode of government in 1931, and the Second Republic turned a portion of its divided attention to the reform of prostitution laws. The chaos of the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939 disrupted these Republican reforms but provided an opportunity for radical groups, including Mujeres Libres, to campaign against prostitution in new and innovative ways.

This report describes the evolution of a prototype portable amenity kiosk to be used by female outdoor sex workers. Following recommendations by Benoit and Millar (2001 pg. 96), I have worked collaboratively with Prostitutes Empowerment, Education and Resource Society (PEERS) to find solutions to two serious problems affecting the outdoor sex trade: 1. The lack of safety, security and well being for on-street sex workers; 2. The persistent negative perception of sex workers by the public, linked to depression and low self-worth. Through small focus groups with sex workers held at PEERS, interviews with social service providers and deep phenomenological immersion in the community, this research has attempted to elicit a strategy for making life on the street safer and better. Central to this thesis is the idea of a portable kiosk that would facilitate a cooperative, rather than territorial model of soliciting. This kiosk or Office idea was introduced at the outset of the meetings with sex trade workers. The concept was presented as a way to improve safety, self-worth, sense of place and level power relations between sex trade workers and their clients. The focus groups revealed that the participants were unanimously in favour of this cooperative or team based model and were forthcoming with design suggestions. The final design that emerged was a small, well-lit shelter with seating for three, safe storage for valuables, and a small toilet. The kiosk will be a stand-alone base for a self-selected, nonhierarchical group of five women per shift. It will be serviced and resituated in low impact areas every two weeks, freeing any given location from becoming a permanent host. This report explains my rationale for the project, outlines some of the preconditions that can lead to the deplorable experience of working on the street and the often repeated cycle of the “whore stigma,” resulting in sex workers being “sequestered” in the most desolate and dangerous parts of town. It argues that the sculptural design of the kiosk and its concomitant referential associations will help mitigate these conditions. Soliciting is illegal, and the issues of abetting this activity in relation to the police, city officials, local business, and the community at large are discussed. Finally, the obdurate physical presence of the kiosk as material discourse is the culmination of the findings of this research project although it still poses many questions. The stage is now set for field testing by PEERS, public discussion and introduction to the wider community.

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.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Political Science Dept., Faculty of Arts, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 289-300)