MEDIATED COMPLICITY: SEX WORK, THE STATE AND MISSING WOMEN IN VANCOUVER'S DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario, Canada (c) Copyright by David Hugill 2009 Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies M.A. Program May 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-53203-4 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-53203-4 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada Abstract More than sixty women disappeared from the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside between 1978 and 2001. This study examines newspaper coverage of the arrest and trial of Robert Pickton, the man accused (and on six counts convicted) of murdering 26 of those women, all sex workers who worked on the neighborhood's strolls. I consider the analyses provided by the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the National Post and argue that they were instrumental in demonstrating that a consideration of the serial killer himself was entirely inadequate to explain what had happened in the Downtown Eastside. Their narratives established police negligence, the social dislocation of street-involved women and the particular perils of living in the Downtown Eastside as core themes of the story. Yet by scrutinizing the definitions provided by these newspapers, I demonstrate that the dominant themes that emerge from their coverage provide explanations which insufficiently consider the range of instruments and assumptions which operated to imperil the women that disappeared. I argue that the coverage effectively reduces the case to a series of contingencies and camouflages the functioning of cultural and structural systems of domination. It offers, 1 contend, a series of coherent explanations that hold particular individuals and practices accountable but largely omit, conceal, or erase altogether the broader socio-political context that rendered those practices possible. I elaborate this contention in four core arguments, each of which corresponds to a chapter of this project. In the first substantive chapter I argue that the coverage's focus on police negligence provides a compelling way to understand how more than sixty women could disappear. But by overemphasizing this explanation, I suggest, the state's role in the crisis is limited to personal and bureaucratic failure and broader considerations i of its culpability are effectively minimized. The next chapter extends this analysis by looking carefully at three core ways that the state itself might be implicated in the violence. Here, I look carefully at the relationship between the crisis and the retrenchment of state systems of social solidarity, the ongoing effects of colonial violence and the criminal regulation of prostitution. The following chapter examines how the coverage operates to establish street-involved sex workers as morally and socially distinct from other women and argues that such renderings operate to make their presence in the 'dangerous' inner-city understandable, an important discursive move that helps to rationalize and explain the violence committed against them. The final chapter argues that the neighborhood itself is produced as a space of chaos and criminality. I challenge such renderings by demonstrating how particular economic and political patterns have operated to isolate the Downtown Eastside from other city spaces and to concentrate particular social phenomena there. The thread that courses through all of these chapters is an attempt to reveal that the coverage's prevailing explanations are 'ideological,' inadequate and incomplete. n Acknowledgements My interest in the Downtown Eastside and the politics of sex work was provoked when I participated in the Parliamentary Internship Program in 2004-2005. I spent most of that winter doing research for a member of the Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws. In spite of our political differences, I am indebted to my friend Hedy Fry, Member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre, who made it possible for me to immerse myself in this work and generously provided me with the opportunity to attend committee hearings in Western Canada. I would also like to acknowledge Libby Davies of the NDP and Real Menard and Paule Brunelle of the Bloc Quebecois who - in spite of the prevailing culture of cowardice that animates political Ottawa - were able to mount a potent challenge to the set of legislative instruments that have caused immeasurable harm to people involved in prostitution, particularly at the street level. That year, my fellow interns taught me a lot about how the Beast works and I want to thank them too, including the ones who, against my stern advisement, enlisted with law schools and the Liberal party. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my supervisor Gillian Balfour and committee members Joan Sangster and Wade Matthews. I have benefited enormously from their labour, insight, and support. I would also like to thank Winnie Janzen, Jim Struthers, John Wadland, and Dr. Richard Newman for their material and advisory support. Finally, I would like to dedicate this project to Trent University's most redeeming feature: the brilliant and radical few who - by virtue of their insurrectionary charisma - inspire and provoke new generations of politicized people. They are: Stacy Douglas, Bryan Palmer, John Rose, Sara Swerdlyk, Sarah Hamilton, Gillian Balfour, Sally Chivers, Wade Matthews, Doug Nesbitt, Joan Sangster, SK Hussan, James Burrows, Davina Bhandar, Iftekhar Kabir and Sarah Kardash. in TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract i Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv List of Figures vi Introduction vii "Once we became aware" Reconsidering dominant explanations Chapter One - Theoretical Framework and Methodological Approach 1 Introduction The contested terrain of ideology Ideology and the case of the missing and murdered women Ideology and news discourses Ideology and the present study Methodological approach Source selection and the Canadian newspaper Chapter Two - Defining the Boundaries of the Crisis 25 Introduction Liberal assumptions and news narratives Defining the crisis: the 'negligence narrative' Conclusions Chapter Three - Absolving the State 40 Introduction The violent rise of the neoliberal state Criminal law and the attack on street prostitution Colonialism and its discontents Conclusions Chapter Four - Producing the Prostitute 84 Introduction Criminal danger and moral corruption Producing the prostitute Accredited sources and authoritative statements The representational authority of family and friends The representational authority of advocates and allies The self-representational authority of sex workers The dominant paradigm Conclusions iv Chapter Five - Producing Skid Row Introduction War is peace: two parts of the same city Mapping chaos Conclusions General Conclusions 158 Works Cited 162 Appendix A - Sections 210-213 of the Canadian Criminal Code 172 Appendix B - Timeline of relevant events (1978-2007) 175 v List of Figures Figure 1.1 English-language Canadian newspapers, by circulation (2007) 20 Figure 1.2 Average daily circulation, by ownership group (2007) 21 Figure 1.3 Urban market share, by ownership group 23 Figure 2.1 Acknowledgement of police negligence in three coverage periods 32 Figure 3.1 Editorial cartoon: Bill Bennett with the people "behind him" 48 Figure 3.2 "Prostitution running wild," excerpt from the Toronto Star (1984) 59 Figure 3.3 Prostitution-related incidents reported by police, 62 British Columbia (2003) Figure 3.4 Conviction and incarceration rates for prostitution offences, 63 Canada (2003/2004) Figure 3.5 References to the criminal prohibition of prostitution in three 64