Rhian Keyse

On 24 September, Ecoar!, the second Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Seeking to empower survivors in their healing, and to provide a call to action for urgent changes to professional practice and policy around abuse, the festival aimed to create a space to share perspectives and build ongoing collaborations. The SHaME delegation to Rio reflect on their experience.

SHaME Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Rhian Keyse discusses the recent U.S. Supreme Court leaked draft opinion, its ahistorical logic, and its implications for abortion rights in the U.S.

SHaME Public Engagement Coordinators Dr Rhea Sookdeosingh and Allison McKibban introduce (Un)Silenced, a series in collaboration with History Workshop Online, which explores how sexual violence relates to various societal institutions.

The SHaME Project team and WOW celebrated the launch of the Shameless! Festival with a reception featuring HRH the Duchess of Cornwall. During her address, the Duchess conveyed the importance of changing the culture of shame surrounding survivors of sexual violence. The festival will take place on November 27th at the Battersea Arts Centre.

Dr Rhian Keyse's project explores the evolution of (post)colonial and international medico-legal responses to rape and sexual violence in Anglophone Africa, c.1920-1985, with particular focuses on Kenya and Ghana. It seeks to understand how international, colonial, and postcolonial legal, medical, and psychiatric structures have impacted on survivors of sexual violence; to recover the experiences of complainants as they navigated medical and legal structures, as well as the role of medical personnel in identifying and prosecuting sexual violence; and to examine how shifting ideas of governance, development, anti-colonialism and rights influenced debates and responses to sexual violence on African continent.