Research and Scholarship
A doctoral student at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Erin's research focuses on using the arts as a tool for political communication in the developing world. Her dissertation project engages a study of the trafficking of women in Thailand and critiques the State Department-driven anti-trafficking movement through the lens of culture and feminist international relations. Conversationally fluent in the Thai language, Erin has conducted qualitative fieldwork with anti-trafficking NGOs, government actors, female migrants and trafficking survivors, and she is currently writing a musical based on her research. Erin holds a BA in music composition from Sarah Lawrence College and a masters in public diplomacy from USC's Annenberg School. For more information about her academic work, please visit this site
Publications
Anti-Trafficking Responses to Thailand's Tier 2 Watch List Status: Seeing Policy Through Women's Eyes. (March, 2012)
This Report examines government and non-government responses to Thailand's Tier 2 Watch List downgrade and the effects of these policies on female migrant laborers and sex workers, and offers recommendations for building a prevention-oriented approach to anti-trafficking policy in Thailand.
(Note: This is a 40meg PDF so please allow a minute for loading)
Negotiating narratives of human trafficking: NGOs, communication and the power of culture. (2012) Journal of Intercultural Communication Research. 1–18. London: Routledge. Online Publication
Trafficking and Prostitution in Thailand: Re-Conceptualizing International Law in the Age of Globalization. (2012). Forthcoming in Liamputtong, Pranee, Ed., Thailand Today: Political and Social Perspectives. Netherlands: Springer.
National identity, the shan, and child trafficking in northern Thailand: The case of D.E.P.D.C. (2010). Shan and Beyond: essays on Shan Archaeology, Anthropology, History, Politics, Religion, and Human Rights. Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University.
NGO narratives in the global public sphere. (2011). The International Journal of Diversity in Organizations, Communities and Nations. Illinois: Common Ground. Online Publication
Wendy S. Hesford, Spectacular Rhetorics: Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms. (2011). International Journal of Communication 5. Read here.
Thai nationalism and the crisis of the colonised self. (2010). The South and Southeast Asia Culture and Religion Journal.Vol. IV. pp. 98-112. Read Here
Lecture: The Trafficking of Women in Thailand
In her one-hour talk, Erin Kamler discusses human trafficking and its effect on women across the globe. Based on her extensive fieldwork in Thailand -- which includes interviews with members of the anti-trafficking NGO community, government and UN officials and trafficking survivors themselves -- Erin illustrates the factors that contribute to trafficking, and how culture plays a large role in shaping the United States' human rights agenda around this issue. For booking information, contact:http://www.wolfmanproductions.com/