18 May 2020
The SHaME Research Hub is pleased to hold its first online reading group. Led by Postdoctoral Research Fellow and SHaME Researcher, Dr Ruth Beecher, this session will address the role of theory in understanding child sexual exploitation.
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18 May 2020, 2-3.30pm
online meeting
In this session, members of the SHaME research team will each give a five-minute commentary on the following chapters from Jenny Pearce (ed.), Child Sexual Exploitation: Why Theory Matters (Bristol: Policy Press, 2019):
Stephanie Wright:
“Child sexual exploitation, discourse analysis and why we still need to talk about prostitution” by Jo Phoenix
Ruth Beecher:
“Contextual Safeguarding: theorising the contexts of child protection and peer abuse” by Carlene Firmin
Adeline Moussion:
“Understanding trauma and its relevance to child sexual exploitation” by Kristine Hickle
Joanna Bourke:
“Using an intersectional lens to examine the child sexual exploitation of black adolescents” by Claudia Bernard
This will be followed by a general discussion, using the following questions as a starting point:
- Are the theories outlined by these authors relevant to sexual violence generally? If so, in what ways?
- What is the relationship between theory and practice in responding to sexual violence?
- What resonance do you believe the theories outlined here have for medicine and psychiatry and what are the implications of this for academics and/or activists who want to influence policy and practice?
- How can specific theories bring concrete benefits to those whose lives are being theorised?
- What, if any, are the specific issues to consider in relation to concepts of children and childhood that are different from other groups in society when we discuss sexual violence?
- How do we, from our own disciplinary perspectives as historians, anthropologists, legal scholars et cetera, respond to the concepts and their application to child sexual exploitation (or to other forms of sexual violence) put forward within this edited collection?
If you would like to read anything contextual in relation to child sexual exploitation in the UK, Alexis Jay’s 2014 report on Rotherham may be a helpful place to start: https://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/download/31/independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-exploitation-in-rotherham-1997—2013
To register, please email r.sookdeosingh@bbk.ac.uk by Friday 15 May 2020.
You will be sent a link to join via Microsoft Teams upon registration.
If you are unable to access the readings, please inform us when you register.