Masculinity under the knife: Filipino men,trafficking and the black organ market in Manila,the Philippines

The Philippines has recently achieved notoriety as one of the top five source countries for commercially provided organs, particularly kidneys, globally. The vast majority of commercial organ providers are economically marginal men, thus throwing into question conventional wisdom regarding the gendered nature of human trafficking in which most trafficked persons are presumed to be female. This article examined the motives of men who sell kidneys in Manila's black organ market and their ongoing negotiations when their aspirations are not fulfilled. I suggest that family considerations figure prominently amongst many of the men, who attempt to use the money from the sale of a kidney as a livelihood or family security strategy. Narratives of economically marginal men in the Philippines about the commercial value of their body parts are situated in discourses of traditional Philippines ideas about masculinity, particularly concerning the male breadwinner and also about heroism. Thus, although an emotionally and relationally complex decision, selling a kidney nonetheless allows these men to attempt to reclaim their masculine roles, but often with contradictory outcomes.     

Announcing: The Janice Monk Lecture in Feminist Geography

In this brief announcement we have the pleasure of introducing the inaugural Janice Monk Lecture in Feminist Geography. The lecture will appear annually in the pages of Gender, Place and Culture. The first lecture, printed here, is by Ruth Fincher of the University of Melbourne. Her article is preceded by four papers that pay tribute to Jan Monk's academic achievements and her dedication to encouraging and guiding the careers of emerging scholars around the world.     

The Janice Monk Lecture in Feminist Geography: the first 10 years

The year 2016 marked the 10th anniversary of the publication of the Janice Monk Lecture in Feminist Geography in Gender, Place and Culture. Here we celebrate that milestone by reflecting upon the 10 lectures that have been delivered in the series. Our aim is to situate these lectures within the context of the wider intellectual changes that have occurred during that period so as to appreciate the lectures, taken as a whole, as a window on contemporary feminist geography. This contextualization also allows us to recognize the continuing development as well as speculate about feminist geography and the Jan Monk Lecture’s role in contributing to and shaping them.     

‘Shades of grey’: spaces in and beyond trafficking for Thai Women involved in commercial sexual labour in Sydney and Singapore

In this article I explore the migration trajectories of some Thai women trafficked internationally for commercial sexual exploitation, suggesting that many figuratively ‘cross the border’ between coerced and consensual existence in volatile migrant sex industries during the course of their migration experiences, thus complicating debates around the notion of choice in ‘sex’ trafficking. In exploring these women's transitions I seek to understand why women who had either never previously been sex workers or who were sex workers operating without duress, but who were then trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation remain in, or re-enter volatile forms of migrant sex work at a later point under voluntary arrangements. In answering this question I focus on the temporal and spatial aspects of individual women's experiences in migrant sex industries drawing in detail on the narratives of two Thai women trafficked to Sydney, Australia and Singapore. I make some suggestions about methodologies used in trafficking research that can assist in bringing to light some of these complex time–space dimensions of women's experiences through their shifting positions in commercial sexual labour. The article also reflects on the implications of these women's trajectories for the ‘prostitution debate’ as it relates to trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation by suggesting that many trafficked women occupy ambiguous or in-between positions in migrant sex industries, neither easily distinguishable by the label of victim of trafficking or migrant sex worker.     

Trafficked Enough? Missing Bodies,Migrant Labour Exploitation,and the Classification of Trafficking Victims in Singapore

Critical geographical research has recently drawn attention to representations of vulnerable or exploited groups that articulate racist or neo‐colonial imaginations, including where these geographical imaginations are implicated in the classification and characterisation of groups for legal purposes. In the case of vulnerable groups of migrants such practices can be invoked to create distinctions that justify the socio‐spatial exclusion or containment, thus oftentimes having profound implications for real people who must manoeuvre the consequences of classification. The paper builds on this strand of inquiry by exploring the imaginaries surrounding trafficking victimhood and the implications of classification for temporary labour migrants in Singapore into “trafficked” and “non‐trafficked” categories. I argue that in the Singaporean context government interest in maintaining the current labour/migration regime is equally as significant as racist and neo‐colonial imaginations and intersect with the latter in productive ways to sort vulnerable migrants into categories of trafficked and non‐trafficked.     

Human geography without scale

The concept of scale in human geography has been profoundly transformed over the past 20 years. And yet, despite the insights that both empirical and theoretical research on scale have generated, there is today no consensus on what is meant by the term or how it should be operationalized. In this paper we critique the dominant – hierarchical – conception of scale, arguing it presents a number of problems that cannot be overcome simply by adding on to or integrating with network theorizing. We thereby propose to eliminate scale as a concept in human geography. In its place we offer a different ontology, one that so flattens scale as to render the concept unnecessary. We conclude by addressing some of the political implications of a human geography without scale.