Classroom Learning
When I entered the Social Justice and Human Rights program at Arizona State University in Fall of 2020, my status as a survivor of interfamilial sex trafficking was one of my most heavily guarded secrets. The white hot shame brought burning bubbles into my throat whenever I imagined telling a peer or colleague about the ten year span of childhood in which my body paid for my family's survival. The compassion and awe I had for the youth survivors I had the privilege of working with was somehow not applicable to my own circumstances. As I began my trauma healing journey, I uncovered- I not only feared being judged but rather even being perceived as a survivor. I cringed, fearing being praised for my strength, resilience, or determination knowing many who would sing these praises in public, but may passively make decisions on my perceived ability to do anything based upon the trauma I had endured. Claiming my status as a survivor felt far from empowering, instead triggering a shift in power dynamics and providing an opportunity for others to deny my agency all while patting themselves on the back for being "considerate". These experiences, unfortunately, are not limited to the micro or individual level but rather are reflections of the dominant narratives created by the organizations that perform anti-trafficking work.
Through the coursework and experiential learning opportunities from the SJHR program, I gained the skills necessary to begin identifying problematic practices within organizations, situating the social, political, and economic conditions both historically and presently, discovering how this issue fits in to human rights and social justice, and begin reclaiming the strength of my lived experience.
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Identifying Problematic Practices
Too often, especially in the humanitarian sector, the mere intention of doing good is conflated with the belief that the actions taken always positively impact those on the receiving end. Having a program that serves teens "rescued" from sex trafficking often solicits positive regard from the general public, without any further consideration of how the program operates. Often the organizations serving a population contribute to the general public's understanding of how a particular population is defined, what challenges that population faces, and what practices are recommended. The power of creating this identity is rarely acknowledged or even considered, despite the large gap of those with lived experience within positions of power in these organizations.
JHR 598: Critical Humanitarianism
Critical Humanitarianism was a highly influential course within my development as a scholar in the MA Social Justice and Human Rights program. The course required the ethical considerations of how aid or humanitarianism are provided, what power dynamics or politics may influence the goods provided for a “worthy” group, and the history of humanitarianism. Many of the elements of concern impacting human rights within humanitarian aid can also be found within U.S. based services. One course reading by Festa, 2010 draws attention to the lack of humanity within humanitarianism, problematizing the reliance of producing sentimental sympathy, in which others are only recognized as human when their pain or victimhood is on display (4). This trend of wavering recognition of humanity is echoed within programing available for human trafficking survivors, in which the portrayal of survivors is often limited to gut-wrenching details of their trauma on display to solicit donations. These representations of real individuals are often meticulously selected, ensuring that the details provided to solicit donations reflect only the elements deemed "worthy" of help.
Exploring the context
Beyond identifying problematic practices, through the SJHR program I began to understand the importance of the multitude of systems that influence human behavior. Responses to social problems are not formulated in a vacuum, but rather are motivated and influenced by social, political, and economic motivations. Those in power make choices on behalf of a population, from defining who is included within the group to determining what needs those members have, all guided by differing motivations. When looking to understand a population, one must consider not only what is being said but whose voice is being promoted and who are the intended recipients.
JHR 501: Proseminar in Social Justice & Human Rights
Proseminar provided the foundational theoretical frameworks that ground the study and application of social justice and human rights. This course emphasized the interconnectedness and intersectionality of the social and political context of the group/individual researchers are focused on and of the researchers themselves. When exploring scholarship focused upon human trafficking, the positionality of the researcher cannot be disregarded as irrelevant as the researcher's motivation for performing the research and their understanding of the population, directly impact the research questions asked. This in-depth exploration of motivations and influences help to situate the scholarship and create the needed space to reflect on the impacts of external factors.
JHR 598: Gender Based Violence and Sex Trafficking
Utilizing the 2020 edition of United States' Trafficking In Persons report as a standard of framing sex trafficking, a cumulative research project was performed focusing on the country of Serbia. This course provided the opportunity to reflect upon the scholarly articles and efforts of local NGOs to reflect upon the victims, traffickers, victim services, and the response to sex trafficking by law enforcement and judiciary system. Through this project, my understanding of the impact of culture (of both my own and one I was previously unfamiliar with) was broadened by providing a single country as a point of comparison. Learning of the impact of influences I was unfamiliar with helped to sharpen my ability to identify influences so engrained within the culture I was raised in, the feel "standard" or "normal".
Human Rights, Social Justice, & Research
The exploitation component of trafficking is commonly associated as an almost textbook example of the manifestation of a human rights violation. The physical act of sex or labor centered as the worst part, with common representations of survivors being "freed" or "rescued" for a "better life" once connected with an organization. This commonly accepted frame for services speaks volumes of the privilege, self-serving, savior obsessed organizations failing to even consider the accumulation of pain following when one must continue to exist in a world knowing the realities of the limited "guarantee" of basic human rights. Projecting the dynamic of rescuer/rescued reflects a self-serving perpetuation of an unbalanced power relationship and rejects the reality that surviving and adapting post-trauma can be as painful as the experience.
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My personal research explores one interpretation of how to conceptualize what messages are currently being projected within the field, what motivation may intersect with the promotion of these narratives, and the impact on the human rights by these representations.
JHR 500: Research Methods
The JHR 500 Research Methods course exposed my unchecked personal bias of viewing quantitative data as the more valid research methodology. Citizenship Reimagined and Gendered Citizenship exposed me to qualitative methodologies providing frameworks that began to answer questions I previously could not fathom even posing. Qualitative research methodologies learned through the research methods directly impacted how I came to understand my impact on my own research through the intersections of scholar, researcher, and survivor.