SEXUAL VIOLENCE RESEARCHER
I am fortunate enough to have been the successful recipient of several grants and scholarships that have allowed me to study some of the vexing complexities involved in sexual violence work.
I have highlighted below ongoing and recent research involved in facilitating and exploring cross-disciplinary collaboration among police, healthcare, and human services; women’s under-recognized expressions of non-consent; and, subtle, nuanced, and consequential ways in which we talk about sexual violence.
Community in Conversation is a research project consisting of a series of monthly gatherings involving participants from across the disciplinary spectrum of sexual violence responses with representation at several levels from Alberta Health Services (AHS), Calgary Police Service (CPS), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), local and provincial sexual assault centres, and post secondary institutions.
We gather and learn from one another, informed by the aims of promoting cross-disciplinary dialogue, tool-sharing to facilitate the building of a lasting and sustainable community, and the collaborative establishment of transdisciplinary training priorities.
Participants have reported that what has been most meaningful about these gatherings are the opportunities to understand the perspectives of their colleagues in other fields, identify and unpack biases, dismantle walls between disciplines, engage in shared vulnerability while exploring ideas and work that challenges them, and developing new ways of thinking and engaging in sexual violence work.
Click here to read a conference paper describing this research. Click here to visit the website.
The large system of sexual violence work is challenged by silos between subsystems – between the mental health, healthcare and legal systems – where fault lines between disciplinary systems weaken the broader one. In this work, my colleagues and I map this siloed system, and identify gaps, levers of change, and actionable insights that can be used to help dismantle these disciplinary silos.
Map the System, Winner: University of Calgary (2019). Winner: Calgary Competition (2019).
National Finalists (2019).
Click here to view a detailed infographic, and click here to read the written work.
In this work, I examine women's descriptions of navigating sexually violent experiences in ways that counter social (and possibly internalized) expectations, ways that are often met with disbelief, and that only some have recognized as strategic instead of as consenting or deceptive. I take up women's descriptions about how they acted and felt during and after being sexually assaulted by someone, and examine them as acts of "strategic agency" -- as actively negotiated and "consider[ed] possibilities for action given the restricted options available" to them (Ehrlich, 2001, p. 114).
This presentation formed part of a two-day private symposium that also involved two public lectures. The private symposium also included presentations by Lise Gotell, Jennifer Koshan, Cressida Heyes, and Paige Gorsak. Also in attendance were Elizabeth Sheehy and Sunny Marriner who offered the first of the public lectures, and Ann J. Cahill, who offered the second of the pubilc lectures.
Click here to read more about the public symposium.
I focus on language (using discourse analysis) to examine the ways in which people:
- construct sexual assault, victims, and perpetrators;
- describe how sexual assault is and should be prevented; and,
- talk about who is and should be responsible for preventing it.
By examining the often subtle and nuanced ways in which "safety tips" directed at women and victim-blaming intersect, I demonstrate how speakers construct women as responsible for men’s perpetration of sexual assault against them. I argue that these constructions are accomplished in speakers’ formulations of sexual assault as a virtually self-perpetuated outcome produced by women who daftly or deliberately breach these conduct-governing rules. Moreover, I maintain that these rules are grounded in otherwise largely unexamined and problematic assumptions about men.
Click here to read the full abstract and/or download the dissertation.