Dr Manali Desai: Gendered Violence in India

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10/21/19 • 54 min

Dr Manali Desai is a Reader in Comparative and Historical Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Her work focuses on the areas of state formation, political parties, social movements, development, ethnic violence, gender and post-colonial studies. In this conversation, we spoke about gendered violence in India in general and Manali's related research in particular. Manali brought along her expertise of post-colonial India and used her sociological lens to dissect the institutional conditions that normalise violence, neoliberalism and how that relates to sexual violence, white feminist gaze and more. Article that we discussed: Desai, M. 2016. ‘Gendered Violence and the Body Politic in India', New Left Review, May/June. Manali's Books: DeLeon, C., M. Desai and C. Tugal (eds.). 2015. Building Blocs: How Parties Organize Society. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. (ASA Political Sociology Section: Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship (Article or Book Chapter) Award (Honorable Mention) Chatterjee, P., M. Desai and P. Roy (eds.). 2009. States of Trauma: Gender and Violence in South Asia. New Delhi: Zubaan and Cambridge University Press. Desai, M. 2007. State Formation and Radical Democracy in India, 1860-1990. [Studies in Asia's Transformations Series]. London and New York: Routledge.

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Erin Shannon: University Responses to Sexual Violence

Erin Shannon is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Education at the University of York in York, England with several years of experience in researching sexual violence in universities. Her Ph.D. research project is a comparative study of university responses to sexual violence in the US and England. In this conversation, we go into her Ph.D. research in detail. We look at how university responses interact with the neoliberal university, preserving reputation and the benefits of comparing response frameworks. Erin explained the issues with a national framework in the US- Title IX and with the lack of a unified framework across English universities and how borrowing of framework ideas can help.

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Dr Olivia Smith: Court Responses to Rape

Dr. Olivia Smith is a Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy at the University of Loughborough. Olivia’s research has been used as an evidence-base on rape justice by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, and by third sector organisations such as Rape Crisis. In this conversation, we spoke about Olivia's research on the gaps in the criminal justice system in responding to rape victims in England and Wales. We discussed themes such as rape myths, gendered bias in Ancient Greek philosophy based concepts of reason and ration- and how they affect court responses to rape victims, moving towards a survivor-centric criminal justice system and more. Research discussed: Smith, O. (2017). The practicalities of English and Welsh rape trials: Observations and avenues for improvement. Criminology & Criminal Justice. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895817702508 Smith, O. & Skinner, T. (2017). How rape myths are used and challenged at court. Social & Legal Studies. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663916680130 Smith, O. & Skinner, T. (2012). Observing Court Responses to Victims of Rape and Sexual Assault. Feminist Criminology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085112437875