Contesting Stories Of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Located within a burgeoning therapeutic/self-help culture this book explores stories of childhood sexual abuse, 'recovered memories' and multiple personalities, and explodes the myths surrounding women who, without memories, redefine themselves as victims.

With the recent media interest in celebrity childhood sexual abuse and rape cases, we think we know what sexual violence is and who 'rape victims' are. But this portrayal is limited. Drawing on in-depth accounts from women who have experienced rape, this book revisits issues of credibility, responsibility and feminism to provide missing details.

This book contextualizes the complexity of sexual violence within its broader context – from war to the resolution of interpersonal disputes – and covers a wide span including sexual harassment, bullying, rape and murder as well as domestic violence. Written by leading academics from a variety of disciplines, contributions also include commentaries that relate the research to the work of practitioners. Despite advances made in the investigation of sexual offences, evidence still points to a continued belief in the culpability of victims in their own victimization and a gap between the estimated incidence of sexual violence and the conviction of perpetrators. Adopting an implicitly and explicitly critical stance to contemporary policy responses that continue to fail in addressing this problem, this book focuses on attitudes and behaviour towards sexual violence from the point of view of the individual experiencing the violence – perpetrator and victim – and situates them within a broader societal frame. It is through an understanding of social processes and psychological mechanisms that underpin sexual violence that violence can be combated and harm reduced, and at this individual level that evidence-based interventions can be designed to change policy and practice. The Handbook is split into four sections: 'Legacies: Setting the Scene' offers a critical overview of historical, legal and cultural processes which help to explain the origins of current thinking and offer steers for future developments 'Theories and Concepts' examines contemporary thinking on sexual violence and reviews explanatory frameworks from a number of perspectives 'Acts of Sexual Violence' reviews a number of specific types of sexual violence, elaborating the range of circumstances, victims and perpetrators with a view to addressing the general and pervasive nature of such violence thus contradicting narrow cultural stereotyping 'Responding to Sexual Violence' overviews and evaluates current policies and practices and offers new ideas to develop different types of interventions. The editors’ conclusion not only draws out the key themes and ideas from contributions to the Handbook, but also considers the nature of and the extent to which any progress has been made in understanding and responding to sexual violence. This will be a key text for students and academics studying sexual violence and an essential reference tool for professionals working in the field including police officers, probation staff, lawyers and judges.

This book discusses LGBTI+ childhood from a critical, interdisciplinary perspective with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of the complex relationship between sexuality, gender and childhood. Placing adultcentrism at the centre of the analytical inquiry, the international range of contributors consider experiences and subjectivities of children, their families and significant contexts. Topics covered include public policies, professional practices and care provision, as well as the tensions and contradictions stemming from the logics of otherness and exceptionality which populate dominant discourses, representations and practices around sex and gender in childhood. This book is intended for researchers and students in gender studies, sexuality studies, education, health, childhood studies and sociology.

The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed a surge in the publication and popularity of autobiographical writings about childhood. Linking literary and cultural studies, Contesting Childhood draws on a varied selection of works from a diverse range of authorsùfrom first-time to experienced writers. Kate Douglas explores Australian accounts of the Stolen Generation, contemporary American and British narratives of abuse, the bestselling memoirs of Andrea Ashworth, Augusten Burroughs, Robert Drewe, Mary Karr, Frank McCourt, Dave Pelzer, and Lorna Sage, among many others. Drawing on trauma and memory studies and theories of authorship and readership, Contesting Childhood offers commentary on the triumphs, trials, and tribulations that have shaped this genre. Douglas examines the content of the narratives and the limits of their representations, as well as some of the ways in which autobiographies of youth have become politically important and influential. This study enables readers to discover how stories configure childhood within cultural memory and the public sphere.

This book presents a novel and accessible way to learn about designing and conducting social research. Unlike traditional social research methods books, it provides a ‘real world’ account of social researchers’ experiences and learning achieved through conducting research in a variety of fields. It contains an eclectic collection of research and advice for conducting research from social researchers with varying backgrounds. Suggestions are made in relation to gaining access to research sites, conducting research on sensitive topics such as suicide, child sexual abuse and homelessness, ensuring the inclusive participation of participants with intellectual disabilities and children. Also included are discussions of conducting practitioner research, conducting research on individual change, psychoanalytically informed research, documentary research and post qualitative research. Other chapters focus on criticality in research on topics that have become politicised and moralised, ensuring that research conducted is credible and how knowledge in research is constructed through both the theoretical framework used and how it is conducted. Bringing together a diverse collection of social research projects, Designing and Conducting Research in Social Science, Health and Social Care will be of interest to students, educators and researchers in the social sciences and professionals in related areas.

This book explores the rich, diverse opportunities and challenges afforded by research that analyses the stories told by, for and about women. Bringing together feminist scholarship and narrative approaches, it draws on empirical material, social theory and methodological insights to provide examples of feminist narrative studies that make explicit the links between theory and practice. Examining the story as told and using examples of narratives told about childhood sexual abuse, domestic/relationship abuse, motherhood, and seeking asylum, it raises wider issues regarding the role of storytelling for understanding and making sense of women’s lives. This thought-provoking work will appeal to students and scholars of women’s studies, feminist and narrative researchers, social policy and practice, sociology, and research methods.

Medical sociology has evolved from being considered as an unimportant area of enquiry to being regarded as central to the study of private troubles and public issues. At present, much of what is deemed in sociology as exciting is advancing or contributing to the field of health. It is appropriate, therefore, that an edited text is published to specifically examine some of the important themes currently in medical sociology research and writing. This volume documents thinking, frameworks and processes that are actively shaping the medical sociology research of today. It covers a wide range of topics ranging from the morality of death and euthanasia to the conflict that exists between different status health care providers. Sociological Perspectives of Health and Illness will be of interest to students across a wide range of courses in sociology and the social sciences. Specifically, students undertaking undergraduate and postgraduate courses in health studies, and health promotion would benefit by reading this textbook. However, professionals will also be attracted to the book due to the dissemination of current practises in health promotion issues and practices.

In this volume, the editors make use of current memory scholarship to explore ethical, moral and cultural issues that continue to shape the ways in which memory is conceived in a range of scientific, therapeutic and legal settings.

How do workers around the world balance risk and support to ensure that their practice meets the ever-changing needs of children and their families? Renowned authors Marie Connolly and Kate Morris join forces to explore the frameworks and ideas which have shaped contemporary child and family welfare practice. From definitions of abuse to assessment models, they examine the knowledge base which lies at the heart of safe and effective statutory practice with children and families. Drawing on examples from a range of English-speaking jurisdictions, the book explores: - How to engage families, including participatory approaches and the role of the Family Group Conference - How to create positive out-of-home environments for children, discussing foster, kinship and residential care and adoption settings - How to improve professional decision-making through supervision and other organizational frameworks. At a time when child welfare systems across the globe are undergoing review, Understanding Child and Family Welfare provides a timely exploration of the reform agendas which will shape future practice. With sharp analytic insights into the difficulties and dilemmas which characterize this field, it is fundamental reading for all students studying child and family support or child protection, as well as for practitioners working within children and family settings.

This book is a vital new resource in the sociological study of family life in the 21st century. The chapters in this volume explore a diverse range of family and intimate life experiences, such as personal choices about reproduction and how life choices and family forms are mediated by factors including geographical location, race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, income and government policy. Through a series of evidence-based chapters, leading sociologists explore a diverse range of family and intimate life experiences and the contexts within which they are lived and experienced. Each chapter delves into the lives and experiences of people whose choices in some way seem to disrupt normative and traditional ideas of family, parenting and childhood. Family patterns and experiences of living apart together, troubled families, children in care, culture, coupledom, same-sex families and digital technology are covered and examined innovatively through theoretical engagement. Chapters also incorporate innovative technologies and their use within family spaces that shape the nature of human relationships and interactions. These negotiations within the family are globally contextualised within the political and ideological frameworks of societies at any given moment in time. The work recognises the sensitivity of family and personal lives and incorporates the increasing need of the impact of emotionality that forms part of knowledge production. Additionally, innovative methods are showcased in chapters on researching the family through socially just methods, researcher emotionality and visual data. By bringing together thought-provoking research findings and innovative methodological and theoretical approaches, this collection of essays raises and articulates relevant, timely and future thinking for its readers. This book will therefore be indispensable for students and researchers as well as professionals and policymakers interested in understanding family life in the 21st century.

The essays included in this volume mostly originate from the conference organised by the editors at Glasgow Women’s Library in March 2012. Language, multilingual narratives and interaction between cultures and languages were key themes of the conference. Interdisciplinary and international, the conference, like this edited volume, brought together specialists working in a range of fields and provided an opportunity for exchanges between historians, sociologists, scientists and literary scholars, as well as between theoreticians and practitioners, academics and non-academics. In spite of these many different approaches, all the papers presented here transcend the idea of ‘national identity’ as an epic heritage or destiny, both linguistic and literary, and suggest a much more fluid definition of citizenship. Working from this perspective and within this general framework, both the editors and the contributors of this volume encourage a broader discussion on women’s narratives of displacement that compels us to rethink the notions of ‘mother tongue’ and ‘native speaker’ and raises philosophical questions about linguistic ownership; in other words, whether a language is owned, appropriated, imposed or rejected and how women experience and express their sense of ‘permanent strangeness’.

Challenging Global Gender Violence provides a qualitative and comparative analysis of women's experiences of violence, healing, and action across cultures. Gender violence is the most pervasive human rights violation affecting women and children across both the developed and developing world. While the specific cultural contexts and acts of violence vary, the feelings that women express about their experiences of abuse are strikingly similar. So are the images, colors, and words they use to express those feelings. Hearts - bruised, broken, and torn; black and red; NO! and No Más! are frequently found on shirts contributed to the Global Clothesline Project. While providing a theoretical analysis of trauma, Susan D. Rose grounds the discussion in the lived experiences and stories of women across cultures. Featuring women's stories, artwork, and voices as they speak about their experiences of violence and healing, this brief volume examines the relationship between gender inequality and gender violence, the health impacts of gender violence, and strategies being used to reduce violence against women.

This book represents a significant contribution to the highly contested debate surrounding how allegations of child sexual abuse should be evaluated. Despite decades of substantial research in this sensitive area, professional consensus remains elusive. A particular source of contention is the sensitivity vs. specificity debate; whether evaluators should aim to reduce the number of true allegations that are labelled false or to reduce the number of false allegations that are labelled true. This edited collection aims to address directly and offer new insights into this debate. It responds directly to Kuehnle and Connell's edited volume, The Evaluation of Child Sexual Abuse Allegations: A Comprehensive Guide to Assessment and Testimony (2009), which included chapters which advocated strong specificity positions at the expense of sensitivity. The chapters in this collection feature both challenges to, and replies by, the authors in Kuehnle and Connell's book, making this an essential resource that moves the debate forward. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse.

"The sexual abuse of children impacts the most vulnerable members of society. It is the stories of all of these victims who suffered in silence that led us to join together to write this book, a book we hope will serve as a cautionary tale for children and adults alike. This book would not be possible without Kayla Harrison's brave revelations of the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her coach; it is these firsthand accounts that give all of us a chance to see explicitly how child sexual abuse can begin, persist, and is brought to an end. In the chapters that follow, we trace the course of Kayla's victimization and survival, weaving her story with our professional experience with hundreds of children, teens, and families to reveal what can be done to prevent and interrupt this damaging cycle"--

The international feminist contributors to this book look through the lens of poststructuralism at how child sexual abuse is differently represented and understood in the populist, academic, clinical, media and legal contexts. Reworking earlier feminist analyses, they show how child sexual abuse is not just about gender and power but also about class, race and sexuality. The first, theoretical section of the book critiques normative theories of the 'effects' of abuse, explores the impact and consequences of feminist interventions and critically examines the potential usefulness of a feminist post-stucturalist approach. In the second part, these understandings are applied to specific arenas of practice with the aim of providing a framework for critical intervention and alternative and better ways of working with child sexual abuse.

This internationally acclaimed collection explores the breadth of contemporary feminism, covering such areas as feminist theory, race, class, sexuality, cultural studies, black and third world feminism, poetry and politics.