Sticky Work: "Good" Feminist Subjects and their “Survivor-Led” Politics

Sticky Work: “Good” Feminist Subjects and their “Survivor-Led” Politics

Increasingly, sexual violence scholarship, activism and sector-work emphasises the importance of “survivor-led” or survivor-centred responses to sexual violence. Such responses have emerged as a necessary correction to the historical and ongoing exclusion and silencing of survivor’s voices, and to redress the attendant harms caused to many survivors as a result.

However, important questions remain regarding which survivors are able to speak and be heard, and what survivor speech ‘does’. In this seminar event, we examine the politics of “survivor-led” responses, and the ways in which these may become both challenging to critique, and bound up in punitive, carceral responses to sexual violence.

Please join us for this free event with Dr molly ackhurst from the University of Greenwich, UK. Dr ackhurst will present her work on “good” feminist subjects and “survivor-led” politics, with Dr Tully O’Neill (LaTrobe University), Jess Oldfield (LaTrobe University/University of Melbourne) and A/Prof Bianca Fileborn (University of Melbourne) acting as discussants, followed by an audience Q&A.

The event will be held in-person at the University of Melbourne Parkville campus, with a Zoom option also available. Location and zoom link details will be emailed to attendees closer to the event date.

This event is free, but registrations are essential.