Criminal Justice Forum: Policing Bodies

I. India Thusi will discuss her recently published book, Policing Bodies, which examines the policing of sex work in South Africa and provides a feminist examination of the regulation of sex work. The regulation of sex work is a site for contesting female sexuality. The policing of sex workers reveals how racism, nationalism, policing, and gender complicate popular understandings about womanhood and the role of the police in controlling it. The book exposes the limitations of dominant feminist arguments regarding the legal treatment of sex work that rely on various modes of criminalization to achieve a feminist goal. The book argues that feminists should look beyond criminal law to promote a feminist vision and relies on an in-depth historically-informed ethnography to support its arguments. Cosponsored by the CSU|LAW Women's Comittee.

 Speaker

I. India Thusi is Professor of Law at Indiana University Bloomington Maurer School of Law and a Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute. Her research adopts an anthropological methodology and examines racial and sexual hierarchies as they relate to policing, race, and gender. Her articles and essays have been published or are forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, NYU Law Review, California Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, amongst others.