Talk to Investigate the Chinese Sex Industry

Erin Thomason, a doctoral student in anthropology at UCLA, speaks about women working in the sex industry in China during a free, public lecture Thursday, Nov. 10, at 3:30 p.m. in Founders Room in the lower level of Westmont’s Kerr Student Center.

Thomason, who graduated from Whitman College and earned a master’s degree at Cal State University, Los Angeles, will explore her research with women working in the sex industry and how it relates to recent anti-trafficking and neo-abolitionist political movements. “In addition to helping us understand how women are being drawn into the industry,” says Edwin Zehner, assistant professor of anthropology at Westmont, “Erin questions the use of narratives of pity in efforts to motivate compassionate action toward them. The implications of Erin’s research have broad relevance to anyone interested in becoming involved in anti-trafficking movements or students researching Asia or women’s studies.”

Later this month, Thomason is scheduled to speak to the American Anthropological Association about “The Moral Imagination: Migration, Motherhood, Suzhi and Sex Work in Hunan China.” “Suzhi” is a Chinese term that loosely approximates the American English concept of cultured or appropriate behaviors for a cosmopolitan individual. Thomason says for many Chinese, suzhi is also a moral imperative that calls on the rural migrant to better herself through consumption. Her research investigates how women working in the sex industry make moral negotiations in a culture of conflicting moral discourses.

The lecture is sponsored by Westmont’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, in cooperation with Westmont’s Gender Studies Program, the Office of Intercultural Studies, and the Gaede Institute for the Liberal Arts.