scholarly journals The Tragedy of Sex Trafficking: A Study of Vietnamese Women Trafficked into Malaysia for Sex Purposes

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 2417-2430
Author(s):  
Shalini Nadaswaran ◽  
Carol Elizabeth Leon

Sex trafficking is an abhorrent crime in our contemporary times. Malaysia is currently both a transit and destination country, where women from different countries are trafficked in and out of Malaysia for sex purposes. This article focuses specifically on the trafficking of Vietnamese women into Malaysia. We, the researchers of this paper, interviewed a group of 10 Vietnamese women who were caught in a single police raid at an illegal ‘gambling center’ and placed in a women’s shelter in Kuala Lumpur. While this article explores the tragedy of sex trafficking and the plight of trafficked victims, it also focuses on the politics of the body of the trafficked woman, discussing how the female body has been abused and condemned through manipulation and oppression. This article also reveals how systems of oppression, namely patriarchal cultural practices and gendered discrimination, have helped form a prejudice and suppression of Vietnamese women. Ketu Katrak and Elleke Boehmer’s discussions on the politics of the female body construct the basis of this article’s theoretical framework. At the same time, the literary approach of ‘lived narratives’ offers a unique blend of multiple disciplines of study, including literature, sociology, gender, and politics, to discuss sex trafficking in Malaysia. Overall, this article provides a glimpse into the complex dynamics of sex trafficking in Malaysia.

Author(s):  
Gabriel Giorgi

Resumen: Distintas intervenciones desde prácticas activistas y culturales en torno al VIH escenifican poéticas y políticas del resto corporal en las que se juegan, por un lado, una reorganización de los modos en que se dramatiza en umbral entre lo vivo y lo muerto en lo público –redefiniendo así el tejido mismo de lo que llamamos “comunidad”—; y por otro, indican los modos en que estos activismos impulsan una disputa sobre los “marcos de temporalización” desde los cuales lo viviente se vuelve reconocible políticamente y donde la noción de supervivencia adquiere una centralidad decisiva. Combinando materiales heterogéneos el artículo busca iluminar los modos en que los activismos y las culturas en torno al VIH configuran un terreno decisivo para pensar políticas de la supervivencia del presente. Palabras clave: VIH, ACT-UP, Supervivencia, Temporalidades, Biopolítica. Abstract: Different interventions from activist and cultural practices around HIV staged poetics and politics of the body remmant. They implie, on the one hand, a reorganitzation of the dramatization of the threshold between the living and the dead in the public space; and on the other, they indicate the ways in which these activisms mobilize a dispute over the “frames of temporalization” from which the living becomes politically recognizable and where the notion of survival acquires a decisive centrality. Combining heterogeneous materials, the article seeks to illuminate the ways in which activism and cultures on HIV constitute a decisive ground for thinking about the present policies of survival. Keywords: IHV, ACT-UP, Survival, Biopolitics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Adi Putra Surya Wardhana ◽  
Fiqih Aisyatul Farokhah

Hal-hal yang berkaitan dengan seksualitas selalu menarik untuk dikaji meskipun diikat oleh tabu. Pada awal abad XX, naskah-naskah soal seksualitas cukup populer, apalagi sudah dicetak dalam bentuk buku yang diperjualbelikan di lapak-lapak buku. Salah satu naskah yang memuat seksualitas adalah Serat Kawruh Sanggama. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengungkap bentuk, fungsi, dan makna politik tubuh dalam Serat Kawruh Sanggama. Metode yang digunakan adalah analisis data kualitatif-interpretatif dengan pendekatan teori politik tubuh. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan, Serat Kawruh Sanggama ditulis di Kediri dan disebarluaskan oleh penerbit Boekhandel Tan Khoen Swie Kediri. Bentuk politik tubuh berupa narasi tentang tata cara atau aturan bersenggama. Naskah ini mengandung politik tubuh yang berfungsi untuk menundukkan, mengontrol, dan mendominasi tubuh perempuan. Namun demikian, naskah ini dapat dimaknai sebagai upaya laki-laki untuk memahami misteri tubuh perempuan. Selain itu, naskah ini dimaknai pula sebagai daya perempuan, sehingga laki-laki harus berusaha untuk memahami seluk beluk tubuh perempuan.Despite a taboo subject amongst society, the matters related to sexuality are always interesting to study. In the early twentieth century, texts on sexuality were quite popular and had even been printed in the form of books that were sold in the book stalls. One of those was Serat Kawruh Sanggama. The purpose of this study was to analyze the form, the function, and the meaning of the politics of the body in the Serat Kawruh Sanggama. The method used in the research was the qualitative-interpretative data analysis combined with the approach of the Politics of the Body. The results of the study have shown that Serat Kawruh Sanggama was written in Kediri and then disseminated by the publisher of the Boekhandel Tan Khoen Swie Kediri. The elements of the Politics of the Body revealed in the text are in the form of narratives related to the procedures or rules of sexual intercourse. It is evident that the elements of the Politics of the Body found on the text served as an instrument of subjugating, controlling, and dominating the female body. This text can be interpreted as an attempt by men to understand the mystery of the female body. However, on the other hand, the text can also be interpreted as an attempt by men to understand the mystery of the female body. In addition, it also represented as a woman's power that encourages men to understand the ins and outs of the female body.


2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 495-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Guéguen

Nelson and Morrison (2005 , study 3) reported that men who feel hungry preferred heavier women. The present study replicates these results by using real photographs of women and examines the mediation effect of hunger scores. Men were solicited while entering or leaving a restaurant and asked to report their hunger on a 10-point scale. Afterwards, they were presented with three photographs of a woman in a bikini: One with a slim body type, one with a slender body type, and one with a slightly chubby body. The participants were asked to indicate their preference. Results showed that the participants entering the restaurant preferred the chubby body type more while satiated men preferred the thinner or slender body types. It was also found that the relation between experimental conditions and the choices of the body type was mediated by men’s hunger scores.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 358-373
Author(s):  
Louise Wilks

The representation of rape continues to be one of the most highly charged issues in contemporary cinema, and whilst many discussions of this topic focus on Hollywood movies, sexual violation is also a pervasive topic in British cinema. This article examines the portrayal of a female's rape in the British feature My Brother Tom (2001), a powerful and often troubling text in which the sexual violation of the teenage female protagonist functions as a catalyst for the events that comprise the plot, as is often the case in rape narratives. The article provides an overview of some of the key feminist academic discussions and debates that cinematic depictions of rape have prompted, before closely analysing My Brother Tom's rape scene in relation to such discourses. The article argues that the rape scene is neither explicit nor sensationalised, and that by having the camera focus on Jessica's bewildered reactions, it positions the audience with her, and powerfully but discreetly portrays the grave nature of sexual abuse. The article then moves on to examine the portrayal of sexual violation in My Brother Tom as a whole, considering the cultural inscriptions etched on the female body within its account of rape, before concluding with a discussion of the film's depiction of Jessica's ensuing methods of bodily self-inscription as she attempts to disassociate her body from its sexual violation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-113
Author(s):  
Obert Bernard Mlambo ◽  

This article examined attitudes, knowledge, behavior and practices of men and society on Gender bias in sports. The paper examined how the African female body was made into an object of contest between African patriarchy and the colonial system and also shows how the battle for the female body eventually extended into the sporting field. It also explored the postcolonial period and the effects on Zimbabwean society of the colonial ideals of the Victorian culture of morality. The study focused on school sports and the participation of the girl child in sports such as netball, volleyball and football. Reference was made to other sports but emphasis was given to where women were affected. It is in this case where reference to the senior women soccer team was made to provide a case study for purposes of illustration. Selected rural community and urban schools were served as case references for ethnographic accounts which provided the qualitative data used in the analysis. In terms of methodology and theoretical framework, the paper adopted the political economy of the female body as an analytical viewing point in order to examine the body of the girl child and of women in action on the sporting field in Zimbabwe. In this context, the female body is viewed as deeply contested and as a medium that functions as a site for the redirection, profusion and transvaluation of gender ideals. Using the concept of embodiment, involving demeanor, body shape and perceptions of the female body in its social context, the paper attempted to establish a connection between gender ideologies and embodied practice. The results of the study showed the prevalence of condescending attitudes towards girls and women participation in sports.


The paper provides an analysis of the structuralist and phenomenological traditions in interpretation of female body practices. The structuralist intellectual tradition bases its methodology on concepts from social anthropology and philosophy that see the body as ‘ordered’ by social institutions. Structuralist approaches within academic feminism are focused on critical study of the social regulation of female bodies with respect to reproduction and sexualisation (health and beauty practices). The author focuses on the dominant physical ideal of femininity and the means for body pedagogics that have been constructed by patriarchal authority. In contrast to theories of the ordered body, the phenomenological tradition is focused on the “lived” body, embodied experience, and the personal motivation and values attached to body practices. This tradition has been influenced by a variety of schools of thought including philosophical anthropology, phenomenology and action theories in sociology. Within academic feminism, there are at least three phenomenologically oriented strategies of interpretation of female body practices. The first one is centred around women’s individual situation and bodily socialization; the second one studies interrelation between body practices and the sense of the self; and the third one postulates the potential of body practices to destabilize the dominant ideals of femininity and thus provides a theoretical basis for feminist activism. The phenomenological tradition primarily analyses the motivational, symbolic and value-based components of body practices as they interact with women’s corporeality and sense of self. In general, both structuralist and phenomenological traditions complement each other by focusing on different levels of analysis of female embodiment.


MELUS ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Kim Jenice Dillon ◽  
Karen Sanchez-Eppler

2021 ◽  
pp. 1354067X2110040
Author(s):  
Josefine Dilling ◽  
Anders Petersen

In this article, we argue that certain behaviour connected to the attempt to attain contemporary female body ideals in Denmark can be understood as an act of achievement and, thus, as an embodiment of the culture of achievement, as it is characterised in Præstationssamfundet, written by the Danish sociologist Anders Petersen (2016) Hans Reitzels Forlag . Arguing from cultural psychological and sociological standpoints, this article examines how the human body functions as a mediational tool in different ways from which the individual communicates both moral and aesthetic sociocultural ideals and values. Complex processes of embodiment, we argue, can be described with different levels of internalisation, externalisation and materialisation, where the body functions as a central mediator. Analysing the findings from a qualitative experimental study on contemporary body ideals carried out by the Danish psychologists Josefine Dilling and Maja Trillingsgaard, this article seeks to anchor such theoretical claims in central empirical findings. The main conclusions from the study are used to structure the article and build arguments on how expectations and ideals expressed in an achievement society become embodied.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 201185
Author(s):  
Victor M. Ortega-Jimenez ◽  
Eva C. Herbst ◽  
Michelle S. Leung ◽  
Robert Dudley

Waterfalls are conspicuous geomorphological features with heterogeneous structure, complex dynamics and multiphase flows. Swifts, dippers and starlings are well-known to nest behind waterfalls, and have been reported to fly through them. For smaller fliers, by contrast, waterfalls seem to represent impenetrable barriers, but associated physical constraints and the kinematic responses of volant animals during transit are unknown. Here, we describe the flight behaviour of hummingbirds (the sister group to the swifts) and of various insect taxa as they fly through an artificial sheet waterfall. We additionally launched plastic balls at different speeds at the waterfall so as to assess the inertial dependence of sheet penetration. Hummingbirds were able to penetrate the waterfall with reductions in both their translational speed, and stroke amplitude. The body tilted more vertically and exhibited greater rotations in roll, pitch and yaw, along with increases in tail spread and pitch. The much smaller plastic balls and some flies moving at speeds greater than 2.3 m s −1 and 1.6 m s −1 , respectively, also overcame effects of surface tension and water momentum and passed through the waterfall; objects with lower momentum, by contrast, entered the sheet but then fell along with the moving water. Waterfalls can thus represent impenetrable physical barriers for small and slow animal fliers, and may also serve to exclude both predators and parasites from nests of some avian taxa.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 721-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenda Z. De Gama ◽  
David Gareth Jones ◽  
Thamsanqa T. Bhengu ◽  
Kapil S. Satyapal

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