12 April 2007 (Thursday), 3:00 – 4:30 pm
TARSHI, 11, Mathura Road, First Floor, Jangpura B, New Delhi

In 19th century colonial India the reaction to the threat (both social and biological) of the prostitute was to forcibly confine infected women in "lock hospitals". An international backlash against these measures left the government in need of a method of regulating prostitutes without seeming to impinge upon their liberty.

Steve Legg, PhD will make a presentation for 45 minutes, tracing the 20th century evolution of the legislative machinery that allowed the state to exert some authority over female prostitutes. This involved a shift from initial policies of segregating women into certain quarters of a town, to the later targeting of brothels under the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Acts, both of which the prostitutes resisted and challenged in various ways.

Steve attained BA and PhD from the University of Cambridge and spent three following years as a Research Fellow. He is now a Lecturer in cultural and historical geography at the University of Nottingham and has a book out in March/April entitled Spaces of Colonialism: Delhi's Urban Governmentalities to be published by Blackwells (in the UK, America and Australia) and Rawat Publishers (in India). He is currently expanding this work on urban politics to look at the regulatory policies applied to prostitutes in 20th century colonial India. This entails situating the local history of Delhi's prostitutes in the national politics of the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Acts and the international politics of social hygiene campaigners and the League of Nations.

The presentation will be followed by an open discussion.

Please stay for tea /coffee and biscuits from 4:30 – 5:00pm.

RSVP:
Sumit Baudh
Senior Programme Associate
The South and Southeast Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality
TARSHI, 11 Mathura Road, 1st Floor, Jangpura B, New Delhi-110014
tel: +91 11 2437 9070, +91 11 2437 9071
fax: +91 11 2437 4022
eml: sumit@tarshi.net
web: www.asiasrc.org

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