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Neoliberalism After Dark: A Workshop on Sex Tourism, Gender and Violence in the Caribbean

This workshop brings together scholars from anthropology, public health and comparative literature to explore sex tourism, its pleasures and perils, its dangers and desires, as it transforms households, gender roles and subjectivities in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and beyond.

Thursday, May 01, 2008
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Lydeen Library
4302 Rolfe Hall
Los Angeles, CA United States

Since 1990s neoliberal restructuring has uprooted traditional industries such as sugar, and tourism has become one of the few growth industries in the Caribbean. This workshop brings together scholars from anthropology, public health and comparative literature to explore sex tourism, its pleasures and perils, its dangers and desires, as it transforms households, gender roles and subjectivities in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and beyond.

Thursday, May 1st, 1pm – 4 pm, Lydeen Library, 4302 Rolfe Hall, UCLA. Reception to follow.

Amalia Cabezas, University of California, Riverside, “Violence and the Night: Sex Work and Violence against Women in the Dominican Republic.”
Her publications include: co-editor, The Wages of Empire: Neoliberal Policies, Repression and Women’s Poverty (Boulder, 2007); “Between Love and Money: Sex, Tourism, and Citizenship in Cuba and the Dominican Republic,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture (2004); co-editor, “Emergent Subjects of Neoliberal Global Capitalism,” Social Identities (2006); “The Eroticization of Labor in Cuba’s All-Inclusive Resorts: Performing Race, Class and Gender in the New Tourist Economy,” Social Identities (2006); and Between Love and Money: Tourism and Sex in Cuba and the Dominican Republic (PA, Forthcoming).

Mark Padilla, University of Michigan, "The Pleasure Industry and Changing Masculinities in the Dominican
Republic."
He is the author of Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality and AIDS in the Dominican Republic (Chicago, 2007); co-editor of Love and Globalization: Transformations of Intimacy in the Contemporary World (Nashville, forthcoming); “Tourism and Tigueraje: The Structures of Love and Silence among Dominican Male Sex Workers,” in Love and Globalization; and “The Embodiment of Tourism among Bisexually-Behaving Male Sex Workers,”Archives of Sexual Behavior, forthcoming; and “’Western Union Daddies’ and their Quest for Authenticity: An Ethnographic Study of the Dominican Sex Tourism Industry,” Journal of Homosexuality, 2007.

Jeannine Murray-Román, UCLA, “Hustling Identity: Creating and Breaking Stereotypes on the Dance Floor in Oonya Kempadoo's Tide Running.” A graduate student in UCLA’s department of comparative literature, Murray-Román’s thesis considers the changes literary practices undergo when incorporating performance practices in either content or form. Her publications include “Hom(e)ing Devices: Locating Identity in the Work of Tassadit Imache," French Review (2004); and "Multimedia Staceyann Chin: Performing and Blogging 'Cyberjournal,'" Extensions (2006-2007).

Discussants: Steven Gregory, Dept. of Anthropology, Columbia University
His publications include: co-editor, Race (Rutgers, 1994); Black Corona: Race and the Politics of Place in an Urban Community (Princeton, 1998); Santeria in New York City: A Study in Cultural Resistance (New York, 2000); and the award-winning The Devil behind the Mirror: Globalization and Politics In the Dominican Republic (Berkeley, 2007).

Drexel Woodson, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson
His publications include: co-editor, MOZAYIK: yon konbit literè ann Ayisyen (An Anthology in the Haitian Language) (PA, 2007); editor & co-author, A Baseline Study of Livelihood Security in the Departments of the Artibonite, Center, North, Northeast, and West, Republic of Haiti (POP/AZ, 1997); and co-author, A Baseline Study of Livelihood Security in Northwest Haiti, (CARE/BARA 1996).

For questions about this event, contact Robin Derby at derby@history.ucla.edu or Jorge Marturano at marturano@ucla.edu