Occupational health and safety among commercial sex workers

The concept of occupational health and safety (OHS) for commercial sex workers has rarely been investigated, perhaps because of the often informal nature of the workplace, the associated stigma, and the frequently illegal nature of the activity. We reviewed the literature on health, occupational risks, and safety among commercial sex workers. Cultural and local variations and commonalities were identified. Dimensions of OHS that emerged included legal and policing risks, risks associated with particular business settings such as streets and brothels, violence from clients, mental health risks and protective factors, alcohol and drug use, repetitive strain injuries, sexually transmissible infections, risks associated with particular classes of clients, issues associated with male and transgender commercial sex workers, and issues of risk reduction that in many cases are associated with lack of agency or control, stigma, and legal barriers. We further discuss the impact and potential of OHS interventions for commercial sex workers. The OHS of commercial sex workers covers a range of domains, some potentially modifiable by OHS programs and workplace safety interventions targeted at this population. We argue that commercial sex work should be considered as an occupation overdue for interventions to reduce workplace risks and enhance worker safety.

‘On the influence of the scientific societies of New Zealand on the character of the nation’ - Collecting and identity at the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute museum, 1874–1899

This paper explores the collection and collecting activity of the Hawke’s Bay Ph ilosophical Institute of Napier, New Zealand. It examines the development of the Institute’s museum and considers the motivations, intentions and interests of the collectors and their activity within the broader scientific and museum context. The work of two significant collectors is examined in detail: William Colenso, FLS, FRS, missionary, explorer and enthusiastic botanist, who engaged in over fifty years of correspondence and botanical exchange with Sir Joseph Hooker at Kew Gardens; and Augustus Hamilton, the curator of the museum who later became Director of New Zealand’s national collection at the Colonial Museum in Wellington. Through consideration of the Institute’s activities during the period 1874 to 1899, it is proposed that within the collection, the emergence of a distinct local identity can be discerned, during the early colonial period of Hawke’s Bay.

Visionnaire 2013

Visionnaire: a screening of graduate and masters short films: Wolf, Shaw, Mawrgan. Treasure, Horton, Kyle. Descent, Coughlin, Michael. Cut, Hendriks, Frouwke. A Silent Waltz, Lefoe, Kelsey; Elliott, Isaac; Nanayakkara, Ashini; Tillett, Michael; Teychenne, Danielle; Axiaq, Christopher. Siren, Brander, Dale; Heath, Katherine, Stielow, Rebecca; Bellamy, Edward; Boldeman, Emma; Dong, Jing. The Man Who Cared Too Much, Milner, Robert; Di Quinzio, Carl; Lancaster, Tabitha; Hennequin, Blake; Pinnock, Alicia; Hay, Sarah. Perspective, Hampson, Matt; Gubieski, Alex; Lam, Yen; Jokomo, Nyasha; Carew, Keanan; Burr, Harrison. A Cut Above, Giebler, Heather; Blythe, Carolyn, Carell, Eden; Lai, Cyrus; Rattenbury, Todd; Gatsios, Isaac. Pumpkins, Davies, Brooke; Scharf, Harrison; Jayawardena, Kevin; Lee, Sebastian; Haidari, Ali; Morris, Travis. The Runner, Mitchinson, Liz; Kelly, Rhin; Fomin, Nina; Luxa, Haili; Williams-Pate, Robert; Karoutsos, Antonios. Doors, Sadeghi, Sam; Ward, Ben; Thomson, Alana; Brown, Sam; Earl, Richard; Watterson, James. Daddy’s Little Girl, Dahlenburg, Zoe; Atalla, Joanna; McConnell, Adam; Perri, Tim; Turnbull, Sophie; Leszczynski, Dale. Hopscotch, Egenes, Silge Vikor; Burns, Matt; Fuller, Kelly; Wurm, Christopher; Parker, Stephen; Carson, Brooke Aung.

Performing passions : Sarah Bernhardt and the silent screen

Film festival. Program curated and presented and by Victoria Duckett along with notes in the catalogue

Who was Sarah Bernhardt? Negotiating fact and fiction

Review essay of : Robert Gottlieb's Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. pp. 233.

Seeing Sarah Bernhardt: performance and silent film

The most famous stage actress of the nineteenth century, Sarah Bernhardt enjoyed a surprising renaissance when the 1912 multi-reel film Queen Elizabeth brought her international acclaim. The triumph capped her already lengthy involvement with cinema while enabling the indefatigable actress to reinvent herself in an era of technological and generational change. Placing Bernhardt at the center of the industry's first two decades, Victoria Duckett challenges the perception of her as an anachronism unable to appreciate film's qualities. Instead, cinema's substitution of translated title cards for her melodic French deciphered Bernhardt for Anglo-American audiences. It also allowed the aging actress to appear in the kinds of longer dramas she could no longer physically sustain onstage. As Duckett shows, Bernhardt contributed far more than star quality. Her theatrical practice on film influenced how the young medium changed the visual and performing arts. Her promoting of experimentation, meanwhile, shaped the ways audiences looked at and understood early cinema.