Ensuring that that our research considers and promotes equality, diversity and inclusion is central to the work we do at the School for Policy Studies. Working in partnership with communities and stake holders to identify research questions that matter and ensuring that studies are co-produced wherever possible helps achieve these aims. This series of blog posts looks at some of the ways what we research and how we go about it incorporates EDI principles.
In this post, Kate Bowen-Viner (Social Policy PhD student) explores how research from the Centre for Gender and Violence is addressing inequalities and tackling gender-based violence.
Introduction
Gender-based violence describes any harmful act towards individuals or groups on the basis of their gender.
It includes domestic violence which UK law defines as ‘any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality.’
Domestic violence is a gendered crime that is unequally experienced by women and perpetrated by men. It is extremely common in the UK. For the year ending March 2019, the ONS estimated 1.6 million women aged 16 to 74 years experienced domestic abuse.
Gender-based violence is a well-documented problem and there are many organisations and activists working to stop it. How can research help to address it? Academic staff in the Centre for Gender and Violence Research conduct high quality research, in collaboration with practitioners and activists, to inform action on addressing the inequality that is gender-based violence.
In this blog, I start by explaining why the Centre’s intersectional, inclusive and collaborative approach to research is vital for addressing gender-based violence. I then explain how findings from research projects contribute to ending violence and supporting survivors/victims.
Doing research: why is an intersectional and collaborative approach important?
Intersectionality explains how different social justice issues (e.g. gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age) cross over with one another.
Taking an intersectional approach is important for understanding how different forms of gendered abuse emerge and addressing the needs of marginalised groups who face violence. For example, see: Rape, inequality and the criminal justice response in England: the importance of age and gender. This paper takes an intersectional approach and concludes that, ‘(r)esults suggest age and gender are significant factors in how sexual violence, and the criminal justice system (CJS), is experienced. Victims-survivors from BME or LGBTQ+ groups are underrepresented within the CJS, implying these groups are not seeking a criminal justice response in the same way as ‘white’ heterosexual victims-survivors.’
Collaboration with practitioners is also important. As Marianne Hester explains:
The partnership between practitioners, researchers and activists is absolutely key. We don’t create change if we sit in our little bubbles. We need to work together.”
Using findings: understanding how violence works
The way domestic abuse manifests is constantly changing so it is important to know how violence works and changes in order to act against it, including emerging forms of coercive control. The Understanding and Responding to Coercive Control project addresses a series of important issues in tackling domestic violence and abuse that have not previously been dealt with to any extent, relating specifically to emerging forms of Coercive Control.
Coercive control is defined as an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim, for example the use of chemical restraints (abuse via medication).
The project will also look into:
- the use of faith and faith practice as part of coercive control;
- assess domestic violence incidents recorded by the police for evidence of coercive controlling behaviour;
- improve measurement of coercive control;
- explore survivors’ mental health for implications on employment and ability to seek safe accommodation;
- develop briefings on the relationship between coercive control, financial /economic abuse and housing crises faced by DVA victims-survivors;
- briefing on the abuse of pets in the context of coercive control.
Another project will be looking at the questions we ask to collect data about domestic abuse from the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Conclusion
Research has a role to play in ending gender-based violence, but it does not operate in a silo. The Centre for Gender and violence’s work shows why an intersectional and collaborative approach to research is so important for making change happen.
Articles and links based on research from the Centre for Gender and Violence Research
- Nine in 10 domestic abusers also target pets, survey finds – The Independent, 24 November 2021
- ‘My ex-partner would take his anger out on my dog – I’d rather he hurt me’ – The Telegraph, 23 November 2021
- Student spikings: universities told to step up prevention efforts – Times Higher Education, 4 November, 2021
- ‘You couldn’t leave your husband. It just wasn’t done’, The Independent, 02 October 2021
- Improving the justice and healthcare response for victims & survivors of gender based violence
