MORE THAN CONDOMS AND SANDWICHES: A FEMINIST INVESTIGATION OF THE CONTRADICTORY PROMISES OF HARM REDUCTION APPROACHES TO PROSTITUTION by Erin Joan Graham B.A., University of Lethbridge, 1986 M.A., University of British Columbia, 2007 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Doctor of Philosophy in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Educational Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2014 © Erin Joan Graham, 2014 Abstract This research explores the experiences and perspectives of women providing front-line service in organizations and agencies, both feminist and mainstream, whose mandate includes support for women experiencing violence, particularly women in prostitution. There is significant research into the experiences of women in prostitution, however, little is known about the experiences and perspectives of front-line workers employed in paid and unpaid positions in the social service industry who are providing support to women in prostitution. Their views of prostitution and the policy frameworks that inform their work are the focus of this inquiry drawing attention, in particular, to how policies framed as harm reduction shape what kinds of support women in prostitution are offered. Harm reduction is an approach initially used to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with the use of illicit drugs. Since the 2003 opening of Insite, North America’s first supervised injection facility (SIF), tactics called harm reduction have been applied to other social problems, including street-level prostitution. This study argues for an approach that goes beyond mere reduction of harm, and explicates and extends a feminist response to male violence in pursuit of good old-fashioned women’s liberation. Data for this inquiry included in-depth interviews with 16 women providing front line services. This study also examined key governmental reports on prostitution and recent court challenges regarding the legality of prostitution, including the 1985 Fraser Report on Pornography and Prostitution in Canada, the 2006 Federal report called The Challenge of Change: A Study of Canada’s Criminal Prostitution Laws, and affidavits gathered by Pivot Legal Society in 2003 from women engaged in prostitution in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Using a methodology informed by Dorothy Smith’s sociology for women and critical ii discourse analysis, the contemporary and historical contexts of Vancouver’s response to social inequality as it is expressed in public discourse about prostitution and harm reduction was examined. Smith’s approach also informs analysis of the study participants’ perspectives. This work challenges the de-politicizing and pathologizing discourses of harm reduction ideology in Vancouver, and provides a forum for women on the front-lines to offer alternatives that may move us to harm elimination. iii Preface This research has been approved by the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board (H10- 02229). iv Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ....................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... v List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................... x Dedication ............................................................................................................................... xii Chapter One: This Story Begins in the Middle ................................................................ 1 The Problem ....................................................................................................................................... 1 Research Questions and Aims ....................................................................................................... 2 Three Broad Analyses of Prostitution ........................................................................................ 6 Research Problem and Perspective ......................................................................................... 13 Conceptual and Methodological Framework ........................................................................ 17 Key Thinkers .................................................................................................................................................. 19 Words About Wording .................................................................................................................. 21 Locating the Researcher .............................................................................................................. 25 Significance of this Study ............................................................................................................. 27 Summary and What Lies Ahead ................................................................................................. 28 Chapter Two: Prostitution in Vancouver and Harm Reduction ............................ 30 Part 1 -- A Brief History of Prostitution in Vancouver and Canada ............................... 31 Part 2. Prostitution in Canada over Two Decades: Comparing the Fraser Report v with The Challenge of Change ................................................................................................................... 46 Part 3. Harm Reduction in Vancouver: Health, History, Politics. .................................. 61 Part 4. Neoliberal Shifts at Home and Abroad ...................................................................... 71 Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 78 Chapter Three: Conceptual Framework ........................................................................ 80 Key Concepts .................................................................................................................................... 81 Evidence-Based Practice versus Dalectical-Materialist Praxis ...................................... 83 Hannah Arendt: Public and Private; Freedom and Responsibility ............................... 84 Identity—Competing Notions of Formation and Implications ....................................... 89 Bourdieu—Habitus, Reproduction, Symbolic Violence and Misrecognition ............. 92 Bourdieu’s Limitations ................................................................................................................. 98 Simone de Beauvoir and the Second Wave ............................................................................ 99 Nancy Fraser and Claims for Justice ...................................................................................... 104 Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 110 Chapter Four: Methodology ............................................................................................ 112 A Sociology for Women .............................................................................................................. 112 Research Design ........................................................................................................................... 116 Other Sources of Data—Pivot Affidavits ............................................................................... 125 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................................. 125 Social Science that Matters: Construction of Quality ....................................................... 128 Limitations and Delimitations ................................................................................................. 131 Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 132 Chapter Five: Pathways and Motivations ................................................................... 134 Making a Difference .................................................................................................................... 134 vi Women of the Diaspora .............................................................................................................. 140 Broadening Shared Horizons ................................................................................................... 147 Yearning for Connection ............................................................................................................ 150 Developing Relations of Solidarity ......................................................................................... 152 Summary and Discussion .......................................................................................................... 157 Chapter Six: Voices of Experience⎯Power and Work .......................................... 162 Perceptions of Prostitution ...................................................................................................... 162 Rewriting the Script: Rightlessness