Julie Ham
Biographic Data
| ID | 3920739 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Julie Ham |
| GIVEN NAMES | Julie |
| FAMILY NAME | Ham |
| SIGNATURE | HAM J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8607-4443 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Hypersexualisation and racialised erotic capital in sex work
Eight people, including six women of East Asian descent, at three massage spas were killed on 16 March 2021 in Atlanta, USA by a 21-year-old White man who sought to eliminate 'temptation' for a sex addiction he claimed to experience. This mass killing compelled public discussion about the hypersexualisation of Asian women in White, Western contexts and the risks faced by Asian women in 'intimate labour'. This occurred alongside a dialogical shift…
At home in illegality: Place-making practices in Hong Kong’s industrial buildings
Hong Kong offers a unique laboratory for housing studies given its notoriety for housing inequalities. This study utilized participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and photovoice to explore place-making practices in one type of illegalized housing, the residential use of industrial buildings. In contrast to studies of housing inequalities that have typically focused on marginalized communities, we found that the use of industrial buil…
Biographical work and the production of credibility in sex work interviews
This article explores the concept of biographical work as a sustained pursuit during interviews with persons engaging in stigmatized and criminalized work. Based on interviews with women engaging in sex work and intimate economies in Hong Kong, the article examines the research interview as an interactional and institutional encounter where interviewer and interviewee jointly create meaning and articulate experiences to produce credibility. Relyi…
Migrating Methods in a Pandemic: Virtual Participatory Video with Migrants in Hong Kong
Can methods travel the way migrants do? We reflect on this question through the development of what we call 'virtual participatory video' or the delivery of participatory video methods for migrant domestic workers and asylum-seekers in Hong Kong - transnationally, online and over Zoom during the pandemic in 2020. The pandemic realities that we grappled with as migration studies scholars and participatory video practitioners reflect realities that…
Scripting pragmatic intimacies in sex work, migration and intimate-material exchanges
This paper examines women's movement between sex work and intimate economies, with a specific focus on how non-Chinese women in Hong Kong leverage intimacy as a means of managing legal and socio-economic precarity within various institutional and individual constraints. To capture the diversity of women's experiences, we use the term 'intimate-material exchanges' to broadly refer to compensation or material support provided in exchange for sexual…
God blessed me with employers who don't starve their helpers”: Food insecurity and dehumanization in domestic work
This paper explores the intercorporeal dimensions of dehumanization in intimate labor through the control of food for domestic workers by employers. The concept of dehumanization, or “the denial of full humanness to others” (Haslam, 2006) offers a useful framework for understanding the spectrum of harms that workers may experience, including those that may be legible as criminal offenses as well as harms that may be woven into the day‐to‐day mana…
Rates, Roses and Donations: Naming Your Price in Sex Work
Questions about payment and what it signifies, lie at the heart of feminist debates concerning the morality and legitimacy of sex work. Yet the materialities of payment still remain interestingly under-explored in sex work research. This article addresses this gap by examining immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers' pricing practices in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia. Determining one's prices or rates in the sex industry was no…
Using difference in intersectional research with im/migrant and racialized sex workers
Intersectionality attends to the interactions between social difference and power, although theoretical models vary in their emphasis on one or the other. Difference-centred models often distinguish between processes of constructing social difference, systems that institutionalize social difference and identities that include social difference. This article discusses the analytical expectations that can emerge in intersectional research that focu…
From subsistence to resistance: Asylum-seekers and the other ‘Occupy’ in Hong Kong
In 2014, the Refugee Union – the only asylum-seeker-led organisation in Hong Kong – organised an eight-month-long protest against assistance policies and practices which they argued dehumanised and jeopardised their dignity and survival. Central to this public protest, termed ‘Refugee Occupy’, was the transformation of a traditional mechanism for asylum-seeker containment – the refugee camp – into a vehicle for asylum-seeker voice, participation …
The Routledge Handbook on Crime and International Migration
The Routledge Handbook on Crime and International Migration is concerned with the various relationships between migration, crime and victimization that have informed a wide criminological scholarship often driven by some of the original lines of inquiry of the Chicago School. Historically, migration and crime came to be the device by which Criminology and cognate fields sought to tackle issues of race and ethnicity, often in highly problematic wa…
We all have one: Exit Plans as a Professional Strategy in Sex Work
The idea of 'exiting' the sex industry plays a powerful symbolic role in the feminist debates around the morality, legitimacy and regulation of sex work. Drawing on interviews with 39 women sex workers in Australia and Canada, we explore three key contrasts between dominant narratives and interventions that frame 'exiting' as escape from trauma or exploitation, and sex workers' assessments of 'exiting' as a personal or professional strategy. Firs…
Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference
Public discourses around migrant sex workers are often more confident about what migrant sex workers signify morally but are less clear about who the ‘migrant’ is. Based on interviews with immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia, Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference challenges the ‘migrant sex worker’ category by investigating the experiences of women who are often assumed to be ‘migrant …
Silence, mobility and ‘national values’: South Korean sex workers in Australia
Korean women sex workers have attracted attention from Australian border security, South Korean government officials and Korean-Australian communities. This article considers how the bodies of these women have become the ‘iconic sites’ ( Luibhéid, 2002 : ix–xxvii) on which the South Korean government and immigrant Korean-Australian communities perform ‘national values’. Within Korean-Australian communities, Korean sex workers have been perceived …
Do Evidence-Based Approaches Alienate Canadian Anti-Trafficking Funders
As a sex worker support organisation, SWAN (Supporting Women’s Alternatives Network) Vancouver’s relationship to anti-trafficking funding remains ambivalent, particularly given the history of anti-trafficking measures that have jeopardised the rights of sex workers. In this article, we share how we, as a small grassroots group, attempt to work through these ambivalences in dialogue with donors. Although SWAN Vancouver works with women who are oft…
In the Eyes of the Beholder: Border enforcement, suspect travellers and trafficking victims
Over the past decade, the border and border policing has figured as central to identifying and responding to trafficking. This article draws on original research into immigration officers’ decision-making — both at the border and within the nation — to identify the persistent preoccupation with suspect travellers. Examining research in Australia and Thailand that spans seven years, the article brings together research that demonstrates the predom…
Strategic in/visibility: Does agency make sex workers invisible
This article examines the links between in/visibility, agency and mobility through the narratives of 55 predominantly indoor sex workers interviewed in Melbourne, Australia, where state government regulations permit some forms of sex work under a licensing framework. This article explores the tensions around the requirement for visibility in the regulation of sex work, the utility of ‘strategic’ invisibility in the lived realities of sex work and…
Strategic in/visibility: Does agency make sex workers invisible
This article examines the links between in/visibility, agency and mobility through the narratives of 55 predominantly indoor sex workers interviewed in Melbourne, Australia, where state government regulations permit some forms of sex work under a licensing framework. This article explores the tensions around the requirement for visibility in the regulation of sex work, the utility of ‘strategic’ invisibility in the lived realities of sex work and…
We all have one: Exit Plans as a Professional Strategy in Sex Work
The idea of 'exiting' the sex industry plays a powerful symbolic role in the feminist debates around the morality, legitimacy and regulation of sex work. Drawing on interviews with 39 women sex workers in Australia and Canada, we explore three key contrasts between dominant narratives and interventions that frame 'exiting' as escape from trauma or exploitation, and sex workers' assessments of 'exiting' as a personal or professional strategy. Firs…
God blessed me with employers who don't starve their helpers”: Food insecurity and dehumanization in domestic work
This paper explores the intercorporeal dimensions of dehumanization in intimate labor through the control of food for domestic workers by employers. The concept of dehumanization, or “the denial of full humanness to others” (Haslam, 2006) offers a useful framework for understanding the spectrum of harms that workers may experience, including those that may be legible as criminal offenses as well as harms that may be woven into the day‐to‐day mana…
Using difference in intersectional research with im/migrant and racialized sex workers
Intersectionality attends to the interactions between social difference and power, although theoretical models vary in their emphasis on one or the other. Difference-centred models often distinguish between processes of constructing social difference, systems that institutionalize social difference and identities that include social difference. This article discusses the analytical expectations that can emerge in intersectional research that focu…
From subsistence to resistance: Asylum-seekers and the other ‘Occupy’ in Hong Kong
In 2014, the Refugee Union – the only asylum-seeker-led organisation in Hong Kong – organised an eight-month-long protest against assistance policies and practices which they argued dehumanised and jeopardised their dignity and survival. Central to this public protest, termed ‘Refugee Occupy’, was the transformation of a traditional mechanism for asylum-seeker containment – the refugee camp – into a vehicle for asylum-seeker voice, participation …
Do Evidence-Based Approaches Alienate Canadian Anti-Trafficking Funders
As a sex worker support organisation, SWAN (Supporting Women’s Alternatives Network) Vancouver’s relationship to anti-trafficking funding remains ambivalent, particularly given the history of anti-trafficking measures that have jeopardised the rights of sex workers. In this article, we share how we, as a small grassroots group, attempt to work through these ambivalences in dialogue with donors. Although SWAN Vancouver works with women who are oft…
In the Eyes of the Beholder: Border enforcement, suspect travellers and trafficking victims
Over the past decade, the border and border policing has figured as central to identifying and responding to trafficking. This article draws on original research into immigration officers’ decision-making — both at the border and within the nation — to identify the persistent preoccupation with suspect travellers. Examining research in Australia and Thailand that spans seven years, the article brings together research that demonstrates the predom…
Migrating Methods in a Pandemic: Virtual Participatory Video with Migrants in Hong Kong
Can methods travel the way migrants do? We reflect on this question through the development of what we call 'virtual participatory video' or the delivery of participatory video methods for migrant domestic workers and asylum-seekers in Hong Kong - transnationally, online and over Zoom during the pandemic in 2020. The pandemic realities that we grappled with as migration studies scholars and participatory video practitioners reflect realities that…
Rates, Roses and Donations: Naming Your Price in Sex Work
Questions about payment and what it signifies, lie at the heart of feminist debates concerning the morality and legitimacy of sex work. Yet the materialities of payment still remain interestingly under-explored in sex work research. This article addresses this gap by examining immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers' pricing practices in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia. Determining one's prices or rates in the sex industry was no…
In the Eyes of the Beholder: Border enforcement, suspect travellers and trafficking victims
Over the past decade, the border and border policing has figured as central to identifying and responding to trafficking. This article draws on original research into immigration officers’ decision-making — both at the border and within the nation — to identify the persistent preoccupation with suspect travellers. Examining research in Australia and Thailand that spans seven years, the article brings together research that demonstrates the predom…
Strategic in/visibility: Does agency make sex workers invisible
This article examines the links between in/visibility, agency and mobility through the narratives of 55 predominantly indoor sex workers interviewed in Melbourne, Australia, where state government regulations permit some forms of sex work under a licensing framework. This article explores the tensions around the requirement for visibility in the regulation of sex work, the utility of ‘strategic’ invisibility in the lived realities of sex work and…
Do Evidence-Based Approaches Alienate Canadian Anti-Trafficking Funders
As a sex worker support organisation, SWAN (Supporting Women’s Alternatives Network) Vancouver’s relationship to anti-trafficking funding remains ambivalent, particularly given the history of anti-trafficking measures that have jeopardised the rights of sex workers. In this article, we share how we, as a small grassroots group, attempt to work through these ambivalences in dialogue with donors. Although SWAN Vancouver works with women who are oft…
Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference
Public discourses around migrant sex workers are often more confident about what migrant sex workers signify morally but are less clear about who the ‘migrant’ is. Based on interviews with immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia, Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference challenges the ‘migrant sex worker’ category by investigating the experiences of women who are often assumed to be ‘migrant …
Silence, mobility and ‘national values’: South Korean sex workers in Australia
Korean women sex workers have attracted attention from Australian border security, South Korean government officials and Korean-Australian communities. This article considers how the bodies of these women have become the ‘iconic sites’ ( Luibhéid, 2002 : ix–xxvii) on which the South Korean government and immigrant Korean-Australian communities perform ‘national values’. Within Korean-Australian communities, Korean sex workers have been perceived …
The Routledge Handbook on Crime and International Migration
The Routledge Handbook on Crime and International Migration is concerned with the various relationships between migration, crime and victimization that have informed a wide criminological scholarship often driven by some of the original lines of inquiry of the Chicago School. Historically, migration and crime came to be the device by which Criminology and cognate fields sought to tackle issues of race and ethnicity, often in highly problematic wa…
We all have one: Exit Plans as a Professional Strategy in Sex Work
The idea of 'exiting' the sex industry plays a powerful symbolic role in the feminist debates around the morality, legitimacy and regulation of sex work. Drawing on interviews with 39 women sex workers in Australia and Canada, we explore three key contrasts between dominant narratives and interventions that frame 'exiting' as escape from trauma or exploitation, and sex workers' assessments of 'exiting' as a personal or professional strategy. Firs…
Using difference in intersectional research with im/migrant and racialized sex workers
Intersectionality attends to the interactions between social difference and power, although theoretical models vary in their emphasis on one or the other. Difference-centred models often distinguish between processes of constructing social difference, systems that institutionalize social difference and identities that include social difference. This article discusses the analytical expectations that can emerge in intersectional research that focu…
From subsistence to resistance: Asylum-seekers and the other ‘Occupy’ in Hong Kong
In 2014, the Refugee Union – the only asylum-seeker-led organisation in Hong Kong – organised an eight-month-long protest against assistance policies and practices which they argued dehumanised and jeopardised their dignity and survival. Central to this public protest, termed ‘Refugee Occupy’, was the transformation of a traditional mechanism for asylum-seeker containment – the refugee camp – into a vehicle for asylum-seeker voice, participation …
Rates, Roses and Donations: Naming Your Price in Sex Work
Questions about payment and what it signifies, lie at the heart of feminist debates concerning the morality and legitimacy of sex work. Yet the materialities of payment still remain interestingly under-explored in sex work research. This article addresses this gap by examining immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers' pricing practices in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia. Determining one's prices or rates in the sex industry was no…
Scripting pragmatic intimacies in sex work, migration and intimate-material exchanges
This paper examines women's movement between sex work and intimate economies, with a specific focus on how non-Chinese women in Hong Kong leverage intimacy as a means of managing legal and socio-economic precarity within various institutional and individual constraints. To capture the diversity of women's experiences, we use the term 'intimate-material exchanges' to broadly refer to compensation or material support provided in exchange for sexual…
God blessed me with employers who don't starve their helpers”: Food insecurity and dehumanization in domestic work
This paper explores the intercorporeal dimensions of dehumanization in intimate labor through the control of food for domestic workers by employers. The concept of dehumanization, or “the denial of full humanness to others” (Haslam, 2006) offers a useful framework for understanding the spectrum of harms that workers may experience, including those that may be legible as criminal offenses as well as harms that may be woven into the day‐to‐day mana…
Migrating Methods in a Pandemic: Virtual Participatory Video with Migrants in Hong Kong
Can methods travel the way migrants do? We reflect on this question through the development of what we call 'virtual participatory video' or the delivery of participatory video methods for migrant domestic workers and asylum-seekers in Hong Kong - transnationally, online and over Zoom during the pandemic in 2020. The pandemic realities that we grappled with as migration studies scholars and participatory video practitioners reflect realities that…
Biographical work and the production of credibility in sex work interviews
This article explores the concept of biographical work as a sustained pursuit during interviews with persons engaging in stigmatized and criminalized work. Based on interviews with women engaging in sex work and intimate economies in Hong Kong, the article examines the research interview as an interactional and institutional encounter where interviewer and interviewee jointly create meaning and articulate experiences to produce credibility. Relyi…
At home in illegality: Place-making practices in Hong Kong’s industrial buildings
Hong Kong offers a unique laboratory for housing studies given its notoriety for housing inequalities. This study utilized participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and photovoice to explore place-making practices in one type of illegalized housing, the residential use of industrial buildings. In contrast to studies of housing inequalities that have typically focused on marginalized communities, we found that the use of industrial buil…
Hypersexualisation and racialised erotic capital in sex work
Eight people, including six women of East Asian descent, at three massage spas were killed on 16 March 2021 in Atlanta, USA by a 21-year-old White man who sought to eliminate 'temptation' for a sex addiction he claimed to experience. This mass killing compelled public discussion about the hypersexualisation of Asian women in White, Western contexts and the risks faced by Asian women in 'intimate labour'. This occurred alongside a dialogical shift…
Sociology (15 works) · Political science (13 works) · Sex work and related issues (12 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Sex work (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works)