The Work of Working on Violence: Reflecting on researching violence against women

With Maria Garner

The increase in public and policy interest in violence against women and girls (VAWG) has repositioned it from a niche topic of study to a popular and necessary focus across disciplines including sociology, philosophy, and cultural theory. What has had less attention is the level of emotional labour involved in such research when one comes to the field with personal experiences of sexual violence and harassment. Exacerbating the limited work in this area are the ways in which, as feminist research has gained traction within the academy, its calling card of ‘the personal is political’ has given way to a perceived requirement for a more hygienic mode of data presentation.