Carceral politics as gender justice? The “traffic in women” and neoliberal circuits of crime,sex, and rights |
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Authors: | Elizabeth Bernstein |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA |
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Abstract: | This article draws upon recent works in sociology, jurisprudence, and feminist theory in order to assess the ways in which
feminism, and sex and gender more generally, have become intricately interwoven with punitive agendas in contemporary US politics.
Melding existing theoretical discussions of penal trends with insights drawn from my own ethnographic research on the contemporary
anti-trafficking movement in the United States—the most recent domain of feminist activism in which a crime frame has prevailed
against competing models of social justice—I elaborate upon the ways that neoliberalism and the politics of sex and gender
have intertwined to produce a carceral turn in feminist advocacy movements previously organized around struggles for economic
justice and liberation. Taking the anti-trafficking movement as a case study, I further demonstrate how human rights discourse
has become a key vehicle both for the transnationalization of carceral politics and for the reincorporation of these policies
into the domestic terrain in a benevolent, feminist guise. I conclude by urging greater and more nuanced attention to the
operations of gender and sexual politics within mainstream analyses of contemporary modes of punishment, as well as a careful
consideration of the neoliberal carceral state within feminist discussions of gender, sexuality, and the law. |
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