Call for Papers – Deadline Thursday November 1st 2018

The Sex, Work, Law and Society Collaborative Research Network (CRN#6) seeks submissions for the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting

Washington, DC:  May 30 – June 2, 2019

The Sex, Work, Law and Society Collaborative Research Network would like to invite you to participate in panels and other sessions at the Law and Society Conference in Washington, DC. This CRN seeks to broaden the conversation on sex work by bridging it with considerations of issues relating to sex in labour contexts, bringing together socio-legal scholars and experts to examine the intersections of sex, work and law. For more information about our CRN, please visithttp://www.lawandsociety.org/crn.html#6. Information about the Law and Society meeting is available at http://www.lawandsociety.org

The theme of the 2019 meeting is Dignity. We interpret the meeting theme as an opportunity to explore issues such as: dignity in the context of labour conditions and labour rights; dignity as a precursor to access to justice and equality; dignity as a necessary component of civic inclusion; dignity in the context of sex workers’ rights movements and other social justice mechanisms; dignity in discourse (public, academic, and policy realms) related to sex work; and dignity as a basis for the use of law to demand respect for sex workers. The theme of meeting could also be interpreted to include discussion about the construction of ‘dignity’ itself as a potentially exclusionary term, requiring a ‘politeness’ and bringing to mind delineations of ‘proper’ behaviour and moral infusion into law. Whose definition of dignity should we employ? Should dignity be used to limit autonomous decision-making around labour? How should we distinguish between dignified labour conditions and undignified labour conditions and how should we respond to the latter situations? How do we document and measure dignity as it relates to sex, work, and the law within the current political economy? And how should we respond when law is used in brutally ‘undignified’ ways, to contribute to oppression, or sustain inequality? Further, given current 'crimmigration’ policies, the conflation of sex industry work and trafficking, tiered citizenship and residency laws, how should we call attention to the dignity of those in precarious and irregular migration contexts?

In light of how dignity has been problematized, participants are encouraged to consider the role and limits of law to respond to ideological, moral, or other politicized conceptualizations of ‘dignity.’ We invite scholarly presentations relating to the overall conference theme, and our CRN’s aims and scope. (Primary key words should include Sex, Work, Law and Society, secondary key words should come from the following list):

Access to Justice
Citizenship, Migration, and Refugee Studies
Class and Inequality
Economic and Social Rights
Economy, Business and Society
Gender and Sexuality
Labor and Employment
Policing, Law Enforcement
Race and Ethnicity
Race, Critical Race Research
Regulation, Reform, and Governance
Rights and Identities
Social Movements, Social Issues, and Legal Mobilization
Social Networks, Personal Relationships

Law and Society requires a 100-250-word abstract for paper presentations, and panel (salon) sessions, 100-200 word abstract for roundtable presentation to be submitted for conference presentation vetting. The deadline for submission to this CRN is NOVEMBER 1st 2018 5PM EST OR 10PM BST.

All proposals for paper presentations, panel (salon) sessions, roundtable discussions will be accepted through LSA’s automated submission system. You can find more details about the automated submission system here http://www.lawandsociety.org/WashingtonDC2019/2019-paper-session.html. When creating your submission, please be sure to select CRN 6 from the dropdown menu in order to be aligned with Sex, Work, Law and Society sessions.

If you wish to publicize your book through CRN 6 Author Meets Reader sessions, please submit the following to Menaka Raguparan at menaka.raguparan@carleton.ca.

• The book title and author’s name;
• Names of minimum of three and a maximum of five Readers (persons who will be attending and are able to commit to the role);
• An abstract of 100-200 word (850 characters), which summarizes the significance of the book for the sociolegal community. The description must include the name of the publisher and the date of publication. Please also indicate here if you prefer to present in a Salon format;
• Keyword selection(s).

You do not have to be a member of LSA or any of the co-sponsoring organizations to participate in the meeting generally.

Please email Menaka Raguparan at menaka.raguparan@carleton.ca if you have any questions or concerns. We look forward to hosting you in Washington, DC. Tweet using #CRN6_DC2019.