Lecturer – ‘Global Perspectives on Sex Work’ and/or ‘Modern Human Trafficking’

Start date: The week of 24 June, 2024

Hours: Each course consists of two x 2 hour classes per week for 5 weeks

• From 24 June – 26 July
• Classes are scheduled from 10:30 to 12:30. Course 1: Mondays and Wednesdays and Course 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays

Location: SIT Amsterdam Study Center (Nieuwe Looiersstraat 31, 1017 VA)

Reports to: Academic Director

Compensation: All-inclusive freelance fee of 150 to 175 EUR per contact hour

Applicants may choose to apply to teach either one or both courses, provided that they have the necessary qualifications and subject area expertise to teach both. Please indicate clearly in your cover letter whether you are interested in teaching either one or both courses.

SIT

School for International Training (SIT) was founded in 1964 as a training center for the first Peace Corps volunteers. For 60 years, SIT has prepared students to be effective changemakers and global citizens through experiential education focused on the world’s most critical global issues. SIT Study Abroad offers accredited semester and summer undergraduate programs in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as International Honors Programs that operate across multiple continents.

SIT Amsterdam

The SIT Study Center in Amsterdam organizes an annual summer program on Human Trafficking, Sex Trade & Modern Slavery in Europe. During the summer program, 10 – 20 US-based undergraduate students travel to Amsterdam for six weeks to examine the complex and multifaceted issues of human trafficking, the global sex trade, and sex work. The summer program consists of two core courses; Global Perspectives on Sex Work and Modern Human Trafficking. The Study Center also offers a semester program on International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender, which runs in the Spring and Fall semesters. In that program, cohorts of up to 25 students analyze topics in gender and sexuality from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.

Global Perspectives on Sex Work

This course exposes students to the historical and contemporary debates regarding sex work, while situating and considering these in a global context. Students will examine topics ranging from the history of different forms of prostitution, the past and future of red-light districts (with a special focus on Amsterdam’s red-light district), the formation of mainstream and alternative sex industries, as well as the legal, social, and political frameworks that delimit sex work (and have, in places like The Netherlands, led to its decriminalization), sex-work activism, and the standing and representation of sex workers. Throughout the course, we will consider sex workers as three-dimensional actors with (bounded) agency who engage in sexual labor (broadly conceived) as a commercial transaction. We will trace, through the lens of the feminist sex wars, the evolving views on sex work and sex workers from those that center coercion and conceive of (paid) sex as being inextricably bound up in exploitative patriarchal and capitalist systems to those that re-center individual (economic) agency, consent, and the lived (and non-uniform) experiences of sex workers.

Modern Human Trafficking

This course approaches the closely related practices of human trafficking and modern slavery as case studies for interrogating the relationship and complex interaction between sex, gender, and human rights; race, colonialism, and the global economy; capitalism and labor exploitation, as well as discourses of public health, bodily and personal integrity, and (state-sanctioned) violence. Taking a capacious view of contemporary human trafficking and its role in maintaining and replicating practices of forced labor, this course will discuss not only the fraught twinning of human trafficking and (some forms of) sex work, but will expand beyond this to analyze, for example, child labor in the Global South and its role in perpetuating “fast” practices of economic consumption in the Global North, smuggling and trafficking as integral practices in sustaining the illegal drug trade, and the trafficking in political asylum seekers and economic migrants in the face of (trans)national migration laws. Students will be exposed to – and asked to consider the relative (de)merits of – a wide array of public and private sector responses, policy proposals, and initiatives that have been developed to stem and counter these and other forms of modern human trafficking.

Responsibilities

• Teach the Global Perspectives on Sex Work and/or Modern Human Trafficking course(s) (i.e. design and deliver two x 2-hour classes per course across 5 weeks of teaching)
• Provide input on the existing course syllabus (e.g. in terms of the assigned readings, and the methods of assessment), while maintaining alignment with the course description and the stipulated learning goals and outcomes for this class
• Conduct ad hoc student meetings, and respond to questions from students on a timely basis
• Grade student assignments and provide feedback in a timely fashion, and in accordance with SIT’s academic guidelines and grading system
• Plan and attend site visits and guest lectures, where applicable
• Keep meticulous student records and report student conduct violations to the Academic Director
• Use Canvas (the Learning Management System adopted by SIT) as directed by the Academic Director

Requirements

• Advanced degree (MA required, PhD preferred) in Gender and Women’s Studies, Sociology, Criminology, Political Science, International Relations or a related discipline with a concentration in these subject areas
• Proven experience as a lecturer teaching undergraduate university students
• Proven experience with independently administering a course from start to finish (i.e. from course design to lesson planning, and from assessment modalities to grading)
• Full professional and academic fluency in English (the candidate must be near-fluent, with    excellent written and oral communication skills), corresponding to – or approaching – CEFR level C2
• At least some knowledge of/familiarity with US-American academic culture – or a strong interest in delving headfirst into US academic policy and pedagogical practices
• Candidates must be allowed to work legally in the Netherlands (SIT cannot sponsor work or work-and-residency permits)
• Candidates should be able to begin teaching the course starting the week of June 24, 2024.

SIT is committed to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace and actively prioritizes applications from members of marginalized or minoritized identity groups.

If you are excited about taking on this position and joining the SIT Amsterdam faculty ranks – and     if you believe you meet the criteria outlined above – please send a cover letter and a copy  of your resume to Fiona Kirk (fiona.kirk@sit.edu), SIT Amsterdam’s Program Coordinator, by Thursday, April 25. Interviews will be scheduled on a rolling basis, beginning in at end-April, and ending in early May.