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Wed 22 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Thu 23 March
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    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Fri 24 March
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    10:45
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    16:30

Sat 25 March
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    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

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Wednesday 22 March 2006 14:15
M-3 GEO02 Spaces of Sexual Citizenship 2: Regulation
Room M
Network: Chair: Gerry Kearns
Organizers: - Discussants: -
David Beckingham, Philip Howell : Regulating the Spaces of Sexual and Parasexual Citizenship in Turn of the
This paper examines debates over the places and spaces of prostitution in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Liverpool, and the role of the state in regulating not just commercial sexuality, but also ‘parasexual’ spaces
such as the bar and public house. In late nineteenth-century Britain, the state’s growing responsibility for managing urban ... (Show more)
This paper examines debates over the places and spaces of prostitution in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Liverpool, and the role of the state in regulating not just commercial sexuality, but also ‘parasexual’ spaces
such as the bar and public house. In late nineteenth-century Britain, the state’s growing responsibility for managing urban space and the behaviour of its citizens, and its inevitable conflict with social purists and social hygienists as well as workers, entrepreneurs and business owners, contributed to the development of new conceptions of citizenship. In this developing understanding of the role of state and citizen, the nature of sexuality was reworked and reordered. In this paper, we consider the central and local state response to sex work, but also the role of bargirls and businesses in challenging attempts to police sexuality and parasexuality from public space. Liverpool, as the British city with the greatest number of police prosecutions for prostitution offences, and the
city with arguably the most developed links between prostitution and the business of drinking, is a critical case study for this turn of the century
remaking of the spaces of sexual citizenship. (Show less)

Michael Brown : Political obligation & disease ecology: the city politics of sexually transmitted infection in Seattle
While rights and freedoms of sexual citizenship have been foregrounded in geography, vaguer and far less attention has been given to questions of political obligation. Feminist work on political obligation, grounded with a framing in political ecology, however, provide a means to correct this neglect. Empirically, I narrate a story ... (Show more)
While rights and freedoms of sexual citizenship have been foregrounded in geography, vaguer and far less attention has been given to questions of political obligation. Feminist work on political obligation, grounded with a framing in political ecology, however, provide a means to correct this neglect. Empirically, I narrate a story of local public health politics in Seattle, Washington. There, a cultural panic played out in the media over the alleged failure of political obligations by gay men around sexually transmitted infections. Political obligation and ecology usefully extends the concept sexual citizenship on its own terms. It links the spatial tradition in political and sexual geography with the nature-society tradition of political/disease ecology. It contributes to deeper thinking for activists involved in working through these questions. It also prevents the cultural right from solely inscribing the content of political obligation for sexual citizens. (Show less)

Phil Hubbard, Jane Scoular, Roger Matthews & Laura Agustin : Regulating the spaces of sexual citizenship: sex work in the EU
The importance of the law in the construction of spaces of sexual identification has often been stressed. In this paper we explore the use of law as a resource which constructs the identities of sex workers as criminal and/or Other in different jurisdictions. The paper draws on ongoing ESRC-sponsored research ... (Show more)
The importance of the law in the construction of spaces of sexual identification has often been stressed. In this paper we explore the use of law as a resource which constructs the identities of sex workers as criminal and/or Other in different jurisdictions. The paper draws on ongoing ESRC-sponsored research on the regulation of sex work in four European nations, elucidating how the law 'works' to striate different sexual practices and identities across public and private territories. The paper thus explores the spatiality of law with an eye to elaborating the gendered and sexual assumptions which underpin the construction of sexual citizenship and shape contemporary spaces of sexual identification. (Show less)

Stephen Legg : Spaces of colonial sex work: debates over the urban segregation of prostitutes in 20th century colonial India.
This paper seeks to examine the way in which the medical and social phenomenon of prostitution was dealt with in 20th century colonial India. The turn of the century saw the Government of India struggling to deal with the aftermath of the campaign against the Indian Contagious Diseases Acts and ... (Show more)
This paper seeks to examine the way in which the medical and social phenomenon of prostitution was dealt with in 20th century colonial India. The turn of the century saw the Government of India struggling to deal with the aftermath of the campaign against the Indian Contagious Diseases Acts and the Cantonment Regulations from the 1870s onwards. Whilst the continued existence of the latter allowed the authorities to tackle prostitutes as a medical threat to the armed forces, they remained wary of intervening in the civil sphere, for fear of offending local sentiment or being seen to participate in the “state regulation of vice.” However, the early 1900s saw the central government put increasing pressure on provincial governments and municipalities to exert control over local sex workers.
The government initially advised the segregation of prostitutes in a particular part of the city that could then be declared out of bounds to troops. However, by the 1920s, experimentation with such tactics in Bombay and Rangoon had proven disastrous. Segregation had created red-light districts that attracted the attention of local youths and offended local conceptions of acceptable public behaviour. Following international pressure from organisations such as the League of Nations and the Association for Social and Moral Hygiene, and national outrages over the treatment of young girls in brothels, the government encouraged crackdowns against “pimps” and “houses of ill fame”. This marked a shift in the urban imaginary and technology of sexual regulation away from segregation and towards a more diffuse system of control. This shift also provides wider insights into the ways in which the central government sought to exert its influence over urban spheres that appeared to be governed by local, elected bodies. (Show less)



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