Face Up (2015)

Kempadoo’s research focused on smartphone imagery in order to reflect multicultural urban life and the experiences of the diasporised self, addressing imagery deploying smartphone aesthetics in artistic production. Overheard dialogue on smartphones shaped the diasporic story lines, and led to technical research with a programmer in order to develop a novel visual approach. The methodological approach explored in written form considers the seductive, hypervisualised space of self and screen associated with the city, as a perpetual line of sight, a physical and virtual urban experience and environment. Central to this space is the racialised and diasporised networked body on the move, precarious in her condition and affective in the performative encounter with herself and others. These insights developed across the visual/written artwork reflect London as a supercity in which migration for work opportunities or to escape danger abroad is commonplace yet, for many, remains precarious. Exhibition venues included Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins (2015), Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, New Jersey (2016) and others

Changing Spaces (1992) and Kissing Life Better (2023)

The group show The World that Belongs to Us with Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Chitra Ganesh, Sunil Gupta and Charan Singh, Roshini Kempadoo, Pamila Matharu, Hardeep Pandhal, Jagdeep Raina, Sa’dia Rehman, Salman Toor was curated by Deborah Robinson and Aziz Sohail at the New Art Gallery, Walsall. Roshini exhibited two artworks Changing Spaces (1992), which was an acquisition and commission by the New Art Gallery and Kissing Life Better (2023) two new filmworks. 'The World that Belongs to Us brings together a constellation of intergenerational artists from the South Asian diasporas of the UK, USA and Canada. The exhibition explores ways in which these artists challenge mainstream narratives, resist exclusion and erasure and build communities and spaces for themselves both within the art world and the diaspora. Sharing a common thread of combining autobiography and activism and working across a range of media including painting, photography, film, animation, wall drawing and site- specific installation, the works on display activate interrelated conversations around community and belonging, friendship and intimacy. Honouring the location of the Gallery in the West Midlands with its multicultural communities and its legacy of championing artists from diverse backgrounds, the exhibition takes inspiration from the trailblazing scholarship of Stuart Hall. Hall argued for culture to be considered as a site from where power could be challenged and wrote extensively about diaspora as a continued negotiation of identity and difference. To this end, the exhibition includes the series Body Weapons by Chila Kumari Singh Burman and Changing Spaces by Roshini Kempadoo. Both important figures within the Black Arts Movement, the artists were commissioned to create new work for the 1993 exhibition Confrontations which were acquired for the Gallery’s Permanent Collection; these works are re-presented and re-contextualised.' The exhibition includes a microsite for the exhibition featuring portfolios and writings by Alice Correia, Alpesh K Patel and Aziz Sohail. https://thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk/digital/theworldthatbelongstous

Writing Sample

Excerpts from Tide Running

‘Bound Coolies’ and Other Indentured Workers in the Caribbean: Implications for debates about human trafficking and modern slavery

Under systems of indenture in the Caribbean, Europeans such as Irish, Scots and Portuguese, as well as Asians, primarily Indians, Chinese and Indonesians, were recruited, often under false pretences, and transported to the ‘New World’, where they were bound to an employer and the plantation in a state of ‘interlocking incarceration’. Indentureship not only preceded, co-existed with, and survived slavery in the Caribbean, but was distinct in law and in practice from slavery. This article argues that the conditions of Caribbean indenture can be seen to be much more analogous to those represented in contemporary discussions about human trafficking and ‘modern slavery’ than those of slavery. Caribbean histories of indenture, it is proposed, can provide more appropriate conceptual tools for thinking about unfree labour today—whether state or privately sponsored—than the concept of slavery, given the parallels between this past migrant labour system in the Caribbean and those we witness and identify today as ‘modern slavery’ or human trafficking. This article thus urges a move away from the conflation of slavery and human trafficking with all forced, bonded and migrant labour, as is commonly the case, and for greater attention for historical evidence

Why prostitution policy (usually) fails and what to do about it?

This article describes and discusses the results of two comparative studies of prostitution policy in Europe that are complementary in their design and methodology. One is a comparison of 21 countries using a most different systems design; the other an in-depth comparison of Austria and The Netherlands, using a most similar systems design. The two studies found a remarkable continuity in the inherent approach to the regulation of prostitution and its effects. Despite differences in political regime, administrative organization, and national cultures, since the middle of the 19th century, the purpose of prostitution policy has been to impose strict controls on sex workers and to a lesser extent their work sites. The effects of this approach have been disappointing: despite rhetorical claims to the contrary the control of sex workers has no discernable effect on the prevalence of prostitution in society. The effects of policies aimed at control are mostly negative in that they corrode the human and labor rights of sex workers. The article discusses several challenges to the regulation of prostitution (such as its deeply moral nature and the lack of precise and reliable data) as well a number of other important outcomes (such as the importance of local policy implementation for the effects of regulation). The article concludes with the empirically substantiated suggestion that a form of collaborative governance in which sex worker advocacy organizations participate in the design and implementation of prostitution policy offers real prospects for an effective and humane prostitution policy

Revitalizando o imperialismo: campanhas contemporâneas contra o tráfico sexual e escravidão moderna

No Canadá atual, as questões envolvendo o tráfico humano estão em alta na agenda pública. Uma variedade de atividades é incluída dentro dessa rubrica, incluindo a prostituição doméstica, na qual cruzar fronteiras nacionais ou internas não é um pré- requisito para como o Estado define o tráfico. O Canadá não está sozinho em sua definição expansiva de tráfico humano. Globalmente, trabalho sexual/prostituição, “tráfico sexual”, trabalho infantil, trabalho migrante infantil, e “escravidão moderna” são parte integral dos discursos hegemônicos sobre “os horrores” do tráfico humano. Neste artigo analiso três campanhas proeminentes que sustentam esse discurso e discuto algumas das ações que essas campanhas promoveram. Argumento que um exame mais detalhado deixa visível uma versão do século XXI do “fardo do homem branco” apoiado por interesses ocidentais, corporativos e neoliberais contemporâneos, através dos quais, a exploração e o abuso sem restrições da vida e da força dos/as trabalhadores/as continuam ocorrendo. Argumento que, ao invés de ir “ao fundo da questão”, os discursos dominantes sobre tráfico humano tendem a ofuscar problemas estruturais e a revitalizar o imperialismo de novas maneiras

'It's Just More Acceptable to Be White or Mixed Race and Gay Than Black and Gay': The Perceptions and Experiences of Homophobia in St. Lucia

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals come from diverse cultural groups with differing ethnic and racial identities. However, most research on LGB people uses white western samples and studies of Afro-Caribbean diaspora often use Jamaican samples. Thus, the complexity of Afro-Caribbean LGB peoples’ experiences of homophobia is largely unknown. The authors’ analyses explore experiences of homophobia among LGB people in St. Lucia. Findings indicate issues of skin-shade orientated tolerance, regionalized disparities in levels of tolerance towards LGB people and regionalized passing (regionalized sexual identity shifting). Finally, the authors’ findings indicate that skin shade identities and regional location influence the psychological health outcomes of homophobia experienced by LGB people in St. Lucia

Women and citizenship post-trafficking : the case of Nepal

The research for this paper was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council – ESRC Res-062-23-1490: ‘Post Trafficking in Nepal: Sexuality and Citizenship in Livelihood Strategies’. Diane Richardson would like to acknowledge the support provided by the award of a Leverhulme TrustMajor Research Fellowship, ‘Transforming Citizenship: Sexuality, Gender and Citizenship Struggles’ [award MRF-2012-106].This article analyses the relationship between gender, sexuality and citizenship embedded in models of citizenship in the Global South, specifically in South Asia, and the meanings associated with having - or not having - citizenship. It does this through an examination of women's access to citizenship in Nepal in the context of the construction of the emergent nation state in the 'new' Nepal 'post-conflict'. Our analysis explores gendered and sexualized constructions of citizenship in this context through a specific focus on women who have experienced trafficking, and are beginning to organize around rights to sustainable livelihoods and actively lobby for changes in citizenship rules which discriminate against women. Building from this, in the final section we consider important implications of this analysis of post-trafficking experiences for debates about gender, sexuality and citizenship more broadly.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe