Stuck in Traffic: Sexual Politics and Criminal Injustice in Social Movements Against Human Trafficking

Stuck in Traffic: Sexual Politics and Criminal Injustice in Social Movements Against Human Trafficking By Edith Celine Marie Kinney A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Jurisprudence & Social Policy in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Kristin Luker, Chair Professor Jonathan Simon Professor Kathy Abrams Professor Marianne Constable Fall 2011 Abstract Stuck in Traffic: Sexual Politics and Criminal Injustice in Social Movements Against Human Trafficking by Edith Celine Marie Kinney Doctor of Philosophy in Jurisprudence & Social Policy University of California, Berkeley Professor Kristin Luker, Chair This dissertation analyzes the sexual politics of transnational movements against human trafficking. I track the periodic securitization of women’s migration and commercial sexual exploitation in international affairs from the Victorian-era movement against “White Slavery” to the contemporary campaign against “modern day slavery” and sex trafficking, using the case of Thailand to investigate the role of women’s advocates in the transformation of governance strategies to address the issue. Drawing on a year of field research in Thailand, I analyze the development of collaborative, inter-agency organizations that partner non-governmental organization (“NGO”) advocates with criminal justice and social welfare officials to implement “rights-based” measures to prevent trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute offenders. I examine the rise of the anti-trafficking movement in Thailand to explore the complex interplay between the state, civil society organizations, and transnational advocacy networks, as well as movement organizations’ strategic mobilization of domestic and international law to pressure states for policy reform. The following chapters demonstrate the complex ways different social movement organizations and state agents engage women’s rights to frame interventions, attract media and financial resources, and secure political influence to advance diverse goals in both local and international forums. I explore the tension between rights-based and crime control approaches to trafficking and labor exploitation by analyzing the divergent incentives of different actors in the processing of trafficking cases. The dissertation reveals how efforts to advance women’s rights through criminal justice interventions often operate to create collateral consequences for the very groups they intend to assist and empower. 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... vi Dedication.................................................................................................................................... vii PROLOGUE - Raids, Rescues and Rights ................................................................................. 1 Research Methods..................................................................................................................... 6 Overview .................................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1 - Mapping Transnational Social Movements in a Web of Political Fields..... 10 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 10 A Web of Political Fields: Reconceptualizing Domestic and Global Opportunity Structures ................................................................................................................................ 11 Overview of Political Fields ................................................................................................. 11 Fields and the Mutual Construction of Political and Discursive Opportunity Structures .... 13 Strategic Framing: Deploying Transnational Concepts in Local Political Fields ............ 15 Reconstructing Meaning: Frames and Framing Processes ................................................... 15 Strategic Framing, Cultural Resonance, and Radicalism: Translating International Ideologies into Local Political Fields ................................................................................... 17 Social Movement Drafting.................................................................................................... 20 Mapping Transnational Social Movements.......................................................................... 22 A Global Web of Political Fields.......................................................................................... 22 Transnational Advocacy Networks and Transnational Social Movements .......................... 24 Governance and the Enrollment of Social Movement Organizations in Security Projects .................................................................................................................................................. 26 Nodal Governance & Networks............................................................................................ 28 A Complex Model of the State: Institutional Diversity and the Creation of Moving Targets for Social Movements........................................................................................................... 30 Policing through Networked “Multi-Agency Partnerships” and Non-State Security Providers ............................................................................................................................... 31 Social Movements as Wave-makers: Securitizing Women’s Bodies, Migration, and Sexuality to Transform Governance Mentalities .................................................................. 34 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 2 - The Colonial Encounter: Civilized Governance and the Construction of Sexual Excess in Polygamy, Prostitution, and National Identity ........................................... 37 The Colonial Encounter in Thailand .................................................................................... 37 Siamese Maneuverings ......................................................................................................... 37 Adoption and Adaptation of Western Governance............................................................... 39 Boundary-Drawing: Race and Nation................................................................................... 41 Keeping Up Appearances: Westernizing Society................................................................. 42 Symbols of National Identity: Thai Women and Quasi-Colonialism................................. 43 Western Trade and the Precursors to Prostitution ................................................................ 44 Sexual Excess, Slavery, and the Capacity to Govern: International Representations of Siamese Women and the Sovereignty of the State ............................................................... 45 Victorian Critiques of Siamese Gender Relations ................................................................ 45 Civilizing Siam: The English Governess at the Siamese Court............................................ 48 i Modernizing Siam: Abolishing Slavery ............................................................................... 49 Sex, Borders, and Migration: Guarding Against the Traffic in (White) Women............. 50 Prostitution, White Slavery, and the Internationalization of Western Gender Codes .......... 50 Sex and Civilization: Regulating Prostitution in Thailand ................................................... 56 Post-Absolutist Siam and the Renunciation of Polygamy .................................................... 61 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 62 CHAPTER 3 - Militarizing the State, Matronizing the Nation.............................................. 64 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 64 Gendered Nationalism and the (Re)constitution of Thai Identity...................................... 65 Mothers of the Nation: Polygamy, Prostitution and Elite Women’s Mobilization During the State-Building Years ........................................................................................................ 67 Modern Wives: Progress and Polygamy............................................................................... 67 Prostitution Reform: From the Regulation of Venereal Disease to Quasi-Abolition ........... 70 Trafficking and Post-Colonial Politics ................................................................................. 72 American Military and American Money in Thailand: Authoritarian Rule and “Development” in the Cold War ........................................................................................... 74 Social and Political Reform in Phibun’s “Democracy Interlude” ........................................ 77 Social Control and Development in Sarit’s “Revolution” .................................................... 80 The 1960 Act for the Abatement of Prostitution .................................................................. 85 The 1966 Entertainment Places Act.....................................................................................

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