Background

Before joining the University of Lincoln I was a Lecturer in Youth Studies at Teesside University where I taught across a number of different sociology and criminology modules. At Lincoln, I teach on a number of units within the School of Social Sciences.

My main research interest is in unregulated and ‘deviant’ occupations: primarily women’s engagement with different forms of sex-work, such as ‘lap-dancing’ and ‘pub stripping’. As well as having an interest in entry routes into sex-work and women’s working conditions and experiences, my interests are focussed on the policy and provision surrounding this work. Furthermore, I am keen to explore ‘work cultures’ within different modes of sex-work and the relationship between ‘work’ and ‘leisure’ within the work place.

Finally, as an ethnographer, I am interested in exploring different ways of developing this methodology and the positionality of the participant observer.

I am author of ‘Dirty Dancing? An ethnography of lap-dancing’ based on my PhD, which was shortlisted for the BSA Philip Abrams Book Prize 2011. I have recently completed a British Academy funded project about the experiences of lap-dancing club customers, and, along with Prof Phil Hubbard (University of Kent), have jointly been awarded £117,000 by the ESRC to explore the impacts of lap-dancing clubs.

Selected Publications

Colosi, R. (2010a) Dirty Dancing? An ethnography of lap-dancing, Devon: Willan.

Colosi, R. (2010b) ‘A return to the Chicago school? From the subculture of taxi-dancers to the contemporary lap-dancer’, in Journal of Youth Studies, Vol. 13 (1); pp 1-16.

Colosi, R. (2010c) ‘Just get pissed and enjoy yourself’: Understanding lap-dancing as ‘anti-work’’,in Hardy, K., Kingston, S. and Sanders, T. (eds.) New Sociologies of Sex Work, Farnham: Ashgate.

Book Reviews

Colosi, R. (2010a) Book Review for ‘Liberalism and Prostitution’ by Peter de Marneffe, in Times Higher Education.

Colosi, R. (2010b) Book Review of ‘Regulating Sex For Sale: Prostitution Policy Reform in the UK’ by Jo Phoenix, in Times Higher Education.

Colosi, R. (2009) Book Review of ‘Paying for Pleasure: Men who buy sex’ by Teela Sanders, in Crime Prevention and Community Safety, Vol.11, pp 141-143.

Seminars and Conferences

‘Over sexed regulation and the disregarded worker: An exploration of the impact of sexual entertainment policy on lap-dancing club workers’, presented at Social Policy Association Conference, University of Lincoln, July 2011

‘Sex-working girls: Inside the occupational subculture of lap-dancers’, presented at Goldsmiths University of London, ESRC Seminar Series-Young Women in Movement: Sexualities, Vulnerabilities, Needs and Norms-Young Women and the Sex Industry, March 2011

‘‘You’re not like all of the other customers’-Performing ‘cynically’ in a lap-dancing club setting’, presented at the International Labour Process Conference, University of Leeds, April 2011

‘Say What You See: From ‘Hanging out’ to Human NVivo to Policy Influence’,presented at Thinking Critically about Analysis Postgraduate Conference, University of Leeds (presented with Dr Teela Sanders), September 2010.

‘Dirty Dancing?’, presented at University of Kent, May 2010.

‘Leisure or Sexual Encounter? Understanding the motives of lap-dancing club customers’, presented at University of Liverpool, December 2009 and at University of Sheffield, February 2010.

‘The Changing Room’, presented at Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference, part of the ‘Regulating Sex’ stream, De Montfort University, April 2009.

‘Lap-Dancing’, presented as part of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Seminar Series, Northumbria University, November 2008.

‘An Ethnography of Lap-dancing’, presented as part of the Crime and Deviance Seminar Series, The London School of Economics, October 2008.

‘Mutual Deception: dancer-customer interaction in a lap-dancing club setting, presented at ‘Pornography to Politics’ Conference, organised by Feminist and Women’s Studies Association, Newcastle University, 2005.

Media

‘Thinking Allowed’ (21/07/10) BBC Radio 4, available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t28dg