Ackhurst, Molly ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8607-5238 (2024) Interrogating the ethics and risks of a “survivor-led” feminist politics around justice. In: The Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference: SLSA March 2024 Labour Law stream, 26th - 28th March 2024, The University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth. (Unpublished)

PDF (Conference Paper) 49948 ACKHURST_Interrogating_The_Ethics_And_Risks_Of_A_Survivor-Led_Feminist_Politics_Around_Justice_(CONFERENCE PAPER)_2024.pdf - Accepted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (68kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

In the fight for justice for survivors of sexual violence, much contemporary feminist anti-violence work has emboldened carceral systems, structures, and logics. This is despite such work recognising the limits of carceral approaches, such as the criminal legal system. The result is a cyclical and stagnating state of stuckness whereby, despite feminist anti-violence work’s consistent attempts to enact change to “get justice”, justice for the vast majority of survivors of sexual violence remains elusive. This paper argues that one reason for this stuckness – and anti-violence feminism’s paradoxical investments in punishment-based systems – is an attachment to the “figure of the wounded survivor”, and in turn to being “survivor-led”. To make this claim, I offer reflections from my own time in feminist sexual violence support work, alongside analysis of empirical work conducted with critical feminist academic texts, and interviews with twenty-three frontline sexual violence workers in England, Wales, and Scotland. In interrogating the ethics and risks of a “survivor-led” politics and epistemology I contend that feminist work must develop different ways to respond to survivors and foster alternative approaches and methodologies that are not “led by” survivors, but which are instead centred by them. These ways must recognise the importance of believing and respecting survivors, but also foster a shifting away from the immovability, or stickiness, that the “survivor-led” politics produces.

Item Type:	Conference or Conference Paper (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	feminist politics; sexual violence; survivor-led;
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BJ Ethics H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) K Law > K Law (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > School of Law & Criminology (LAC)
Last Modified:	05 Mar 2025 12:12
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/49948

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads