In Plain Sight? Human Trafficking and Research Challenges

A review of: In Modern Bondage: Sex Trafficking in the Americas. Edited by David E. Guinn and Elissa Steglich. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 2003. 475pp

From Rescue to Representation: A Human Rights Approach to the Contemporary Anti-Slavery Movement

Current efforts to end contemporary slavery represent a fourth wave of an Anglo-American abolitionist movement. Despite this historic precedent, there is little agreement on the nature of the problem. A review of current academic discourse, movement frames, and policy approaches suggests that six perspectives predominate: a prostitution approach focused on sexual exploitation of “women and girls”; a migration approach focused on the cross-border flow of migrants; a criminal justice approach focused on law and enforcement; a forced-labor approach emphasizing unfree labor; a slavery approach focused on trafficking in comparative-historical context; and a human rights approach centered on individual rights. This article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and advances an expanded version of the human rights approach

To Seek and Save the Lost: Human Trafficking and Salvation Schemas among American Evangelicals

American evangelicals have a history of engagement in social issues in general and anti-slavery activism in particular. The last 10 years have seen an increase in both scholarly attention to evangelicalism and evangelical focus on contemporary forms of slavery. Extant literature on this engagement often lacks the voices of evangelicals themselves. This study begins to fill this gap through a qualitative exploration of how evangelical and mainline churchgoers conceptualize both the issue of human trafficking and possible solutions. I extend Michael Young\u27s recent work on the confessional schema motivating evangelical abolitionists in the 1830s. Through analysis of open-ended responses to vignettes in a survey administered in six congregations I find some early support for a contemporary salvation schema. It is this schema, I argue, that underpins evangelicals\u27 framing of this issue, motivates their involvement in anti-slavery work, and specifies the scope of their critique. Whereas antebellum abolitionists thought of their work in national and structural terms contemporary advocates see individuals in need of rescue. The article provides an empirical sketch of the cultural underpinnings of contemporary evangelical social advocacy and a call for additional research

What Slave-holders Think

Dr. Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick is an Assistant Professor at the University of San Diego and University of Nottingham Four hundred years after the introduction of chattel slavery in British North America, and a century and a half after the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery persists. Drawing on fifteen years of work in the antislavery movement, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick takes an inside look at contemporary slavery and asks: How do contemporary slaveholders rationalize the subjugation of other human beings, and how do they respond when their power is threatened? More than a billion dollars have been spent on contemporary antislavery efforts, yet the practice persists. Why? Unpacking what slaveholders think about emancipation is critical for scholars and policy makers who want to understand the broader context, especially as seen by the powerful. Insight into those moments when the powerful either double down or back off provides a sobering counterbalance to scholarship on popular struggle.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/croft_spe/1003/thumbnail.jp

Managing Democracy in Social Movement Organizations

Leaders are crucial to social movement mobilization and maintenance. They often experience conflict between a value for inclusive engagement and a sense that they are moving efficiently toward their organizations\u27 goals. This study draws on a multisite ethnography to suggest two mechanisms through which leaders may resolve this conflict: staging (manipulating organizational procedures) and scripting (using language to reinforce these procedures). Resolving tension in this way often leaves the leader in control of organizational processes and outcomes, and has the unintended effect of stifling the actual process of democratic participation. This study emphasizes the culturally embedded inertia of the democratic ideal and highlights a particular set of tactics for democracy management. It is proposed that these mechanisms might be helpfully applied to a growing literature on inclusive engagement in contemporary associational forms as well as a range of other institutional contexts

Drones for Good: Technological Innovations, Social Movements, and the State

The increased use of and attention to drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), have led to a widespread debate about their application. Much of this debate has centered on their use by governments, often for the purpose of surveillance and warfare. This focus on the state\u27s use obscures the opportunity for civil society actors, including social movements, to make use of these technologies. This article briefly reviews the technological innovation before proceeding to a typology of civil society uses, ranging from art to digital disruption. This typology emphasizes the dual-use nature of this technology and, in the process, highlights the need for a best-practices framework to guide such use. Drone usage for the public good, it is argued, should prioritize 1) subsidiarity; 2) physical and material security; 3) the do no harm principle; 4) the public good; and respect for 5) privacy, and 6) data. These factors are introduced and discussed

From Rescue to Representation: A Human Rights Approach to the Contemporary Antislavery Movement

Current efforts to end contemporary slavery represent a fourth wave of an Anglo-American abolitionist movement. Despite this historic precedent, there is little agreement on the nature of the problem. A review of current academic discourse, movement frames, and policy approaches suggests that six perspectives predominate: a prostitution approach focused on sexual exploitation of “women and girls”; a migration approach focused on the cross-border flow of migrants; a criminal justice approach focused on law and enforcement; a forced-labor approach emphasizing unfree labor; a slavery approach focused on trafficking in comparative-historical context; and a human rights approach centered on individual rights. This article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and advances an expanded version of the human rights approach

All the protestors fit to count: using geospatial affordances to estimate protest event size

Protest events are a hallmark of social movement tactics. Large crowds in public spaces send a clear message to those in authority. Consequently, estimating crowd size is important for clarifying how much support a particular movement has been able to garner. This is significant for policymakers and constructing public opinion alike. Efforts to accurately estimate crowd size are plagued with issues: the cost of renting aircraft (if done by air), the challenge of visibility and securing building access (if done by rooftops), and issues related to perspective and scale (if done on the ground). Airborne camera platforms like drones, balloons, and kites are geospatial affordances that open new opportunities to better estimate crowd size. In this article we adapt traditional aerial imaging techniques for deployment on an “unmanned aerial vehicle” (UAV, popularly drone) and apply the method to small (1,000) and large (30,000+) events. Ethical guidelines related to drone safety are advanced, questions related to privacy are raised, and we conclude with a discussion of what standards should guide new technologies if they are to be used for the public good

Up in the Air: Applying the Jacobs Crowd Formula to Drone Imagery

The accurate estimation of event size is important for city planners, concert coordinators, social movements and anyone else interested in understanding how many people show up to an event. For social movements, the social theorists Charles Tilly long ago argued, large crowds signal worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment. Huge crowds on the street are a clear signal to authorities, the media, bystanders and the media itself. The same can be said for events with small turnouts. Event coordinators often have interests that lead to methods that inflate estimates. Critics and movement targets, on the other hand, are interested in minimizing the perceived size and scope of protests to their authority. Current efforts to estimate protest size have used on-the-ground methods (requiring many enumerators total control of the event area) or in-the-air methods (such as traditional aircraft, which are expensive and require advance notice and special permissions). Technological innovation involving Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (or "drones") provide an opportunity tomore accurately and affordably estimate crowd size. In this brief methods article we introduce a novel adaptation of a standard estimation model (Jacobs Crowd Formula) for use on an entirely new platform