Research

Is the family a place of safety or a trap? SHaME Director Dr Ruth Beecher explores the institution of the family and the (lack of) recognition of child sexual abuse within it.

Dr George Severs argues that the history of male victims of rape and sexual violence should make us all alert to the ways in which gender norms silence male experiences of abuse, and prompt us to hear hear male survivors who are so often both silent and silenced.

Can medical institutions participate in colonial violence? SHaME's Allison McKibban argues the involuntary sterilization of tens of thousands of Native American women in the 1970s must be rehistoricised as part of the U.S. government’s broader campaign of genocide.

SHaME Associate Fellow Dr Stephanie Wright explores how society approaches the sexual desires of those with disabilities. She establishes how the historical lack of acknowledgement of vulnerable people's sexual autonomy can result in an increased possibility of harm. 

How has sexual violence been produced through different institutional cultures of harm? And what strategies have survivors used to counter silence, shame, and stigma? The SHaME team explores various forms of institutional sexual violence in a series originally published with History Workshop Online in 2022.

The SHaME project is pleased to present a Call for Papers for our upcoming workshop, 'Humour and Sexual Violence', taking place online on 15 March 2023.

On 24th September, the Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence will take place in its second year in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro. Called Ecoar! Festival, the one day festival will be created and presented by Redes da Maré, in partnership with SHaME and the WOW Foundation.

SHaME was honoured to host the official book launch of author, activist, survivor and academic Winnie M Li’s second novel, ‘Complicit’ (Orion). Winnie was joined in conversation by Prof Joanna Bourke and guests Marai Larasi, Prof Liz Kelly, Rowena Chiu, and Dr Katherine Angel.

Amongst the many risks and uncertainties brought on by an act of sexual violence is the threat of sexually transmitted infection. What are the barriers to such post-rape health care and advice? In this blog, SHaME Postdoctoral Fellow Dr George Severs reflects on a policy roundtable which considered these questions in relation to HIV.

On 13th July 2022, SHaME hosted the official book launch of Dr Charlie Jeffries' book, Teenage Dreams: Girlhood Sexualities in the US Culture Wars (Rutgers University Press, 2022). Charlie was joined by SHaME's Prof Joanna Bourke for a short reading and discussion of what this book can tell us about the race- and class-inflected battles over adolescent women’s sexual and reproductive lives.

On 28 April 2022, SHaME presented the official book launch of Associate Prof Sameena Mulla and Associate Prof Heather Hlavka's 'Bodies in Evidence: Race, Gender, and Science in Sexual Assault Adjudication' (New York University Press). Heather and Sameena were joined in conversation by host Prof Joanna Bourke and guests Assistant Prof April Petillo, Dr Gethin Rees, and Prof M Gabriela Torres.

On 14 December 2021, SHaME closed its 2021 Events Calendar with the official book launch of Dr Nick Basannavar’s ‘Sexual Violence Against Children in Britain Since 1965: Trailing Abuse’ (Palgrave Macmillan). Nick was joined in conversation by host Professor Joanna Bourke (Principal Investigator at SHaME) and guests Professor Adrian Bingham (Sheffield) and Professor Rachel Hope Cleves (Victoria).

SHaME are recruiting a postdoctoral research fellow to join our interdisciplinary team from October 2021 or January 2022.

Anna Weedon, an experienced children’s rights practitioner and manager, and research assistant with SHaME, discusses her research findings on survivors' experiences with health professionals in the UK since the late 1960s.

Rianna Price, PhD Candidate at Lancaster University, discusses her research into the debates, understandings, and issues for queer Indians during the last 3 decades of the twentieth century.

SHaME is holding an online international, interdisciplinary academic symposium to explore the relationship between Medicine, Psychiatry, and Sexual Violence.

In this installment of 'Spotlight On', SHaME postdoctoral researcher Dr Stephanie Wright, speaks to Dr Ángel Alcalde (University of Melbourne) about his work on sexual violence during the Spanish Civil War and Francoist dictatorship.

Over twenty researchers and practitioners joined the SHaME team for our first online reading group on Monday 18 May 2020. The discussion centred on Jenny Pearce’s recent edited collection Child Sexual Exploitation: Why Theory Matters (Bristol: Policy Press, 2019).