Is it Prostitution or Sex Trafficking? Working with women behind bars to better understand both
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Description
Having worked with sex workers and victims of trafficking for over thirteen years, join Dr Jill McCraken as she talks about her primary areas of research focusing on sex work and trafficking in the sex industry, women and incarceration, and more recently, the impact of sexuality education on marginalized communities.
Speaker Bios
Dr Jill McCracken is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and Co-Founder / Co-Director of Sex Workers Outreach Program (SWOP) Behind Bars, an organization that provides community support for incarcerated sex workers and connects them within US prisons and jails to the sex worker rights movement.
Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative research methods, Dr McCracken integrates community-based, participatory research in her work. Her current book, 'Learning with Women in Jail: Creating Community Based Participatory Research' (SpringerBriefs in Anthropology and Ethics, forthcoming 2018), documents the research process she and her co-researchers (women who are and were incarcerated in the Pinellas County Jail) created and conducted to better understand incarceration and recidivism.
She is currently working on a Fulbright Specialist Project which implements a community-based research project with the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective.
The project focuses on how to prevent violence and trafficking in sex work as well as the ways in which legislative models enhance or impinge on sex workers’ health, safety and well-being.
Dr McCracken speaks at local, national and international venues about trafficking in the sex industry, women and incarceration, and social justice organizing. She provides training on harm reduction, sex work and trafficking in the sex industry, and sexuality education. She has conducted trainings with public defenders, human trafficking coalitions, and non-profit organizations. Her work has been recognized through many awards and honors including the Women in Research and Philanthropy USF Faculty Research Award, the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Service.