Professor Sophie Day MA PhD
Department of Anthropology
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross
London
SE14 6NW
Sophie Day is on research secondment to Imperial College London for three years from 1 April 2011.
Professor Sophie Day studied at Cambridge University, Stanford University, Ca., and the London School of Economic and Political Sciences, where she completed a PhD on spirit possession in Ladakh, North India. She holds an honorary chair at Imperial College, London in the School of Public Health, where she is seconded for three years from April 2011. She was awarded the Eileen Basker Prize and the Wellcome Medal for Anthropology as Applied to Medical Problems for her 2007 monograph, On the Game: Women and Sex Work.
London: Pluto Press.
Whilst on secondment at Imperial College London, Professor Day is continuing to supervise her Goldsmiths PhD students whilst conducting research on several topics, ranging from biobanking to collaborative research with nursing staff on patient experiences locally and evaluation of a three country intervention to prevent cardiovascular illness. She is teaching on Society and Health to first year medical students and contributes to other courses such as the BSc in Global Health
Areas of supervision
Sophie Day supervises research students in medical anthropology, and in a wide range of topics related to kinship, labour and temporality. She is also interested in students researching Ladakh (India)
Research interests
Professor Sophie Day has recently completed a restudy of sex work in London (supported by the Wellcome Trust), and a European project on HIV prevention among prostitutes (supported by the European Commission). Currently, she is engaged in documenting, digitalizing and returning images from her 1980s fieldwork to Ladakh, North India (with Dr Leizaola, supported by the British Academy). She will be co-investigator on a pilot project that will secure Goldsmiths Masters in Health students with course placements to improve patient experience (2010-11, supported by the NHS).
As a medical anthropologist, she has worked on sexual & occupational health, new technologies and spirit possession. She approaches the study of health through research on work and the division of labour (including the informal economy), sexuality and gender, and the anthropology of temporality.
Photographic Exhibition
Sophie Day is presenting a photographic exhibition in Ladakh in the summer of 2011 entitled, Leh (1981-2010): The Span of a Generation. You can see a virtual copy here.
Selected publications
Books
| 2007 |
On the Game: Women and Sex Work. London: Pluto Press. (Awarded the 2007 Eileen Basker Prize, and the Wellcome Medal for Anthropology as Applied to Medical Problems (RAI). |
| 2004 | Sex work, Mobility and Health in Europe. eds S Day, H Ward. London: Kegan Paul. pp. 281 ISBN: 0-7103-0942-2 (see Contents page [pdf]) |
| 1999 | Lilies of the Field: Marginal People Who Live for the Moment, eds Sophie Day, Evthymios Papataxiarchis, & Michael Stewart. (USA: Westview) pp.260 |
Selected articles and chapters
| 2010 | Ethics between Public and Private: Sex Workers' Relationships in London. In Michael Lambek ed. Ordinary Ethics. NY: Fordham University Press |
| Day S. The re-emergence of 'trafficking': sex work between slavery and freedom JRAI 2010; 16: 816-834 | |
| Day S, Goddard V. New beginnings between public and private: Arendt and ethnographies of activism. Cultural Dynamics 2010; 22 (2):137-154 | |
| 2009 | Day S. Renewing the war on prostitution: issues of 'trafficking' and 'slavery'. Anthropology Today, 2009; 25 (3): 1-3 (Guest editorial). |
| 2008 |
'Wolfenden 50: revisiting state policy and the politics of sex work in the UK'. In Demanding Sex: Critical Reflections on the Regulation of Prostitution (eds.) Vanessa Munro, Marina Della Giusta, Ashgate. |
| 'Visions of Ladakh: Nicola Grist, 19 April 1957 - 26 August 2004'. In Modern Ladakh: Anthropological Perspectives on Continuity and Change, M. van Beek and F. Pirie (eds.), Leiden, Brill. |
|
| 2007 | 'Threading time in the biographies of sex workers'. In Ghosts of Memory: Essays on Remembrance and Relatedness, J Carsten (ed.), Oxford, Blackwell. |
| With K. Cooper K, Green A, Ward H. 'Maids, Migrants and Occupational Health in the London Sex Industry'. Anthropology and Medicine 2007; 14 (1): 41-53. |
|
| 2006 | 'What happens to women who sell sex? Report of a unique occupational cohort' in Sexually Transmitted Infections;82;413-417 (with H. Ward) |
| 2004 | 'Declining prevalence of STI in the London sex industry, 1985 to 2002' in Sexually Transmitted Infections; 80(5);374-379 (with H. Ward, A. Green, K. Cooper and JN Weber) |
| 2003 | 'Secret enterprise: market activities in London sex workers', in Workers and narratives of survival in Europe: The management of precariousness at the end of the XXth century, A. Procoli (ed.). SUNY Press |
| 2001 | 'Biological Symptoms of Social Unease: the Stigma of Infertility in London Sex Workers', in Managing Reproductive Life: Cross-Cultural Themes in Fertility and Sexuality, S. Tremayne (ed.). NY and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp.85-103. |
| 2000 | 'A prospective social and molecular investigation of gonococcal transmission', in The Lancet; 356: 1812-1817 (with H. Ward, C.A. Ison, I. Martin, A.C. Ghani, G.P. Garnett, G. Bell, G. Kinghorn, and J.N. Weber). |
| 'The Politics of Risk Among London Prostitutes', in Risk Revisited. pp 29- 58. Pat Caplan (ed). Pluto: London. | |
| 1999 | 'Risky business: health and safety in the sex industry over a 9 year period', in Sexually Transmitted Infections; 75:340-343 (with H. Ward and J. Weber). |
| 1998 | 'Sexual Networks: The Integration of Social and Genetic Data', in Social Science and Medicine. 47(12):1991-1992. |
