Crystal A. Jackson
Department of Sociology
I study gender & sexuality, political sociology, deviance, and inequalities by examining the law, work, and culture of commercial sex.
My dissertation situates sex worker rights activism as a re-defined labor movement. I also study the political economy of Nevada’s brothel industry, the only legal sale of sex in the country; the gendering of local level strip club regulations; and the socio-cultural meanings of adult film for both producers and consumers. I use a number of qualitative research methods including ethnography, interviewing, participatory activist research, historical analysis, and legal content analysis, as well as surveys.
My dissertation, Sex Workers’ Rights as 21st Century Labor Activism: Sexual Politics and Contingent Worker Organizing (Chair Barbara Brents), is a two-year ethnographic study of how activism by and for contingent, criminalized laborers operates in a post-industrial society.