In fall 2022, the Human Trafficking Research Cluster (HTRC) celebrated the publication of its inaugural volume. Co-edited by research cluster Director Elena Shih and Kamala Kempadoo (York University), “White Supremacy, Racism, and the Coloniality of Anti-Trafficking” (Routledge Press) features 18 essays that explore the various ways  anti-trafficking efforts are rooted in systemic forms of power and influence. The book emerged from a 2017 HTRC conference  “Whitewashing Abolition” — a two-day public convening in which many of the authors in the volume gathered to share ideas. The book celebrated its launch at the University of Toronto in November and again at Brown University in May, featuring comments by the co-editors and authors Samuel Okyere and Jose Miguel Nieto Olivar. 

Throughout spring 2023, the HTRC co-hosted Brown's Asian American Artist-in-Residence, Yin Q, a writer, documentary filmmaker, cultural activist, and core collective member of Red Canary Song (RCS), a grassroots coalition building worker organizing amongst Asian migrant massage workers in the Northeast. In March 2023, HTRC screened the Rhode Island premier of RCS' feature-length documentary, “Fly in Power,” (directed by Yin Q and Grace Yoon Na), featuring a Q &A with the directors and producers. “Fly in Power” follows the story of Charlotte, a Korean massage worker and core organizer of Red Canary Song. Through her story, we learn how the incarceration system is pitted against Asian migrant women and their survival. Other RCS members, including Khokhoi, a young body worker, and HTRC research cluster fellow Prof. Elena Shih, share powerful insights that debunk the myths of sex trafficking. Fly in Power is a glimpse into the intimate spaces that not only connect these workers, but is also a testament to the global advocacy of women’s rights to work and thrive. 

Since 2020, RCS has worked as a community partner with the HTRC on an ongoing oral history project that documents the experiences of migrant Asian massage workers as they face labor exploitation, racialized poverty, and state sanctioned violence. Student research cluster members work closely with RCS and are thrilled to launch a policing of massage work mapping project, Liberation Atlas, in July 2023.