NGender seminar series

There are approximately 100 students at Sussex working on doctorates (DPhil/PhDs and professional doctorates) in gender-related areas, in departments including Sociology, Anthropology, International Relations, English, Media & Film, Psychology, Education, Law and Social Work. They have decided to set up a seminar series in order to build community and share their work in progress – this will start in Spring 2010. For more information, see www.sussex.ac.uk/gender/ngender.

Violent and Victimised Bodies

I recently did an audit of sexual violence policy in England and Wales – an article based on this is forthcoming in Critical Social Policy and here’s the abstract:

This paper uses the notion of the body to frame an archaeology (Foucault, 1972) of sexual violence policy in England and Wales, applying and developing Pillow’s (2003) ideas. It argues that the dominant construction is of sexual violence as an individualised crime, with the solution being for a survivor to report, and with support often instrumentalised in relation to criminal justice objectives. However, criminal justice proceedings can intensify or create further trauma for sexual violence survivors. Furthermore, in addition to criminalising the violent body and supporting the victimised one, there is a need for policy to produce alternative types of bodies through preventative interventions. Much sexual violence is situated within (hetero)sexual dynamics constructing a masculine aggressor and a feminine body which eventually yields. Prevention must therefore focus on developing embodied boundaries, and narratives at the margins of policy could underpin such efforts.

Forthcoming book

I just signed a contract with Polity Press, for a book on the politics of the body to be written in the next 18 months. This will explore the work of key social and political theorists (within feminism and without) via a number of controversial debates around the body: for instance, the coercion/choice binary in sex work, the issue of abortion in the case of foetal abnormalities, and the question of whether or not one should wear a poppy on remembrance Sunday. It will also use empirical data to bring some of the arguments to life. It will hopefully be a challenging text for students, and will spark off ideas for researchers as well.

Feminist and Women’s Studies Association

I was recently appointed Chair of the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association, and will be taking over from Dr Stacy Gillis in June.The FWSA is a UK network promoting feminist research and teaching, and women’s studies nationally and internationally. Visit the website at http://www.fwsa.org.uk.

Women’s Aid ad

The new advert for Women’s Aid, starring Keira Knightley, can be seen here:

http://www.cutmovie.co.uk/

The film will be shown in cinemas and on television (after the watershed).

The ‘myth’ of sex trafficking?

I’m currently reviewing Laura Agustín’s recent book Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry (Zed, 2007) for the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. In it she argues that migrants who sell sex are not passive victims but resourceful individuals who make rational choices, and that those who set out to help them are not devoid of self-interest and can reproduce the marginalisation they condemn.

More of Agustín’s writing can be found at http://www.nodo50.org/Laura_Agustin/.

Rape and respectability

In this article, forthcoming in Sociology 43(3) in August 2009, I explore the intersections between sexual violence and social class. Here’s the abstract:

Women on low incomes are disproportionately represented among sexual violence victims, yet feminist research on this topic has paid very little attention to social class. This paper blends recent research on class, gender and sexuality with what we know about sexual violence. It is argued that there is a need to engage with classed distinctions between women in terms of contexts for and experiences of sexual violence, and to look at interactions between pejorative constructions of working class sexualities and how complainants and defendants are perceived and treated. The classed division between the sexual and the feminine, drawn via the notion of respectability, is applied to these issues. This piece is intended to catalyse further research and debate, and raises a number of questions for future work on sexual violence and social class.