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Upcoming event: Economic abuse – new research to inform prevention  

    Join us for an in person seminar on 6 May exploring the picture of economic abuse in the UK and the systems that enable it followed by a morning tea

    Economic abuse is a legally recognised form of domestic abuse that often occurs within the context of intimate partner violence. Control over an individual or family’s money and the things that can be bought can have long-lasting and damaging effects. New research is crucial to building the knowledge base and contributing to the burgeoning scholarship.

    Join the Violence & Society Centre and the UKPRP VISION research consortium on Tuesday 6 May from 10 am – noon in Rhind Building at City St George’s, University of London, for a seminar highlighting: 

    • the nature and impact of economic abuse in the UK; 
    • the perpetuation of this abuse through family-owned companies; and 
    • the misuse of financial products, services and technologies provided by banks in order to harm intimate partners 

    Dr Vanessa Gash will chair the seminar and introduce our guest presenters with expertise in researching economic abuse: 

    • Rosa Wilson Garwood, Surviving Economic Abuse 
    • Dr Vivien Chen, Monash University 
    • Dr Belén Barros Pena, City St Georges 

    Agenda 

    • 10:00 – 10:10      Welcome from the Chair, Dr Vanessa Gash, City St George’s
    • 10:10 – 10:30      Understanding the nature and impact of economic abuse in the UK, Rosa Wilson Garwood, Surviving Economic Abuse 
    • 10:30 – 10:50       Hidden risks of economic abuse through company directorships, Dr Vivien Chen, Monash University (Australia) 
    • 10:50 – 11:10       Addressing fintech-facilitated economic abuse through participatory design methods, Dr Belén Barros Pena, City St George’s  
    • 11:10 – 11:30      Panel Q & A facilitated by Vanessa Gash 
    • 11:30 – Noon      Tea / networking in the Violence & Society Centre 

    The seminar will be in Rhind Building, St John Street, London, EC1R 0JD, and end with a panel discussion and Q&A followed by a morning tea in the Violence & Society Centre.  

    Please register here: Economic abuse seminar

    For further information, please contact VISION_Management_Team@citystgeorges.ac.uk

    Upcoming event: Weaving Stories of Peer Sexual Abuse 

      Insights from a youth co-created animation project

      Weaving Stories is a pilot animation project developed by County-Durham arts education company, Changing Relations, and funded via the VISION research consortium through the Small Projects Fund.

      The animation was co-produced with Secondary-aged students, survivors of peer sexual abuse, and an artistic team, to amplify young people’s voices on the theme of unwanted sexual behaviour and the culture that enables it. The students and young survivors shaped every aspect of the animation.

      An interdisciplinary Steering Group of academic researchers, creative practitioners, and child protection and sexual violence specialists from a North East school and Rape Crisis centre, were also involved in the project.

      With this animation and associated school based learning programme, Changing Relations seeks to influence knowledge, behaviour, and institutional change using the impactful animation as stimulus for reflection. Following this pilot project, VISION and Changing Relations have organised a one-hour webinar for UK policymakers and practitioners to:

      • Watch the co-created animation (20 minutes)
      • Hear young people’s perspectives on the key themes and co-production approach
      • Explore the animation’s potential impact on school cultures, disclosure, help-seeking, and victim-blaming attitudes
      • Engage in academic-informed analysis of trauma-informed safeguarding and youth-centred approaches to sexual violence prevention
      • Gain practical insights on using creative participatory approaches to engage young people in conversations about violence and abuse
      • Consider actionable recommendations for policy and practice
      • Contribute your reflections

      This webinar will be of interest to a wide range of professionals who work with adolescents and / or in violence-prevention. Educators, social workers, academics, and third sector, central and local government policy analysts and researchers in particular may be interested.

      There are two dates providing the option to choose between a more practice or policy oriented session:

      • Thursday 8th May 1-2pm for policymakers
      • Wednesday 14th May 3-4pm for practitioners

      Speakers and facilitators

      • Lisa Davis, Managing Director, Changing Relations
      • Kate Gorman, Creative Producer and Artistic Director, Changing Relations
      • Kimberly Cullen, Knowledge Exchange Manager, UKPRP VISION research consortium, City St George’s UoL

      Webinar registration

      To register for free for either the 8th or 14th of May, please visit our page on Ticket Tailor.

      The webinar will be on Microsoft Teams and you will receive the link on the day you choose to attend.

      For further information, please contact VISION_Management_Team@citystgeorges.ac.uk

      VISION/VASC Webinar Series: Into the Light Index

        We are pleased to announce our next webinar for the VISION and Violence & Society Centre (VASC) Webinar Series on Tuesday, 21 January, 1100 – 1150.

        Deborah Fry, Director of Data at Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute and Professor of International Child Protection Research at University of Edinburgh, will present on the Into the Light Index, published last year on the prevalence of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse. She will also discuss some of the measurement challenges in this field and how they are documenting and exploring those challenges.

        Professor Fry undertakes primary research to measure the magnitude, drivers and consequences of violence against children, barriers and enablers to appropriate prevention and response systems including in school settings and the effectiveness of existing interventions.

        She leads the data division at Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute. The Data Institute, funded by the Human Dignity Foundation, aims to take a data driven, evidence-based approach to understanding the prevalence of child sexual exploitation and abuse across the globe and translating that data into sustainable action that safeguards children. The mission is to establish a world leading independent institute that gathers, translates and visualises the prevalence of child sexual exploitation and abuse across the world.  

        To register for the event in order to receive the Teams invitation, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

        The purpose of the VISION/VASC webinar series is to provide a platform for academia, government and the voluntary and community sector that work to reduce and prevent violence to present their work / research to a wider audience. This is a multidisciplinary platform and we welcome speakers from across a variety of fields such as health, crime, policing, ethnicity, migration, sociology, social work, primary care, front line services, etc. If interested in presenting at a future Series webinar, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

        This webinar series is sponsored by the UK Prevention and Research Partnership consortium, Violence, Health and Society (VISION; MR-V049879) and the Violence and Society Centre at City St George’s, University of London.

        VISION/VASC Webinar Series: Measuring the global burden of morbidity associated with violence against women and children

          This event is in the past.

          We are pleased to announce our next webinar for the VISION and Violence & Society Centre (VASC) Webinar Series on Tuesday, 1 October 2024, 1300 – 1350.

          Joht Chandan, Clinical Professor of Public Health at the University of Birmingham, will present his research on measuring the global burden of morbidity associated with violence against women and children.

          Joht has spent considerable time working on designing and delivering a public health approach to abuse and violence. This includes research into finding what works to support survivors of violence, abuse and maltreatment as well as methods to improve surveillance in the context of violence against women and children. For example, his research has shown that survivors of domestic abuse are nearly three times more likely to suffer from mental ill health during their lifetime and have above-average rates of diabetes, heart disease and death.    

          To register for the event in order to receive the Teams invitation, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

          The purpose of the series is to provide a platform for academia, government and the voluntary and community sector that work to reduce and prevent violence to present their work / research to a wider audience. This is a multidisciplinary platform and we welcome speakers from across a variety of fields such as health, crime, policing, ethnicity, migration, sociology, social work, primary care, front line services, etc. If interested in presenting at a future Series webinar, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

          The VISION/VASC Webinar Series is sponsored by the UK Prevention and Research Partnership consortium, Violence, Health and Society (MR-V049879) and the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London.

          VISION/VASC Webinar Series: IPV and the LGBTQI+ communities

            This event is in the past.

            We are pleased to announce the VISION and Violence & Society Centre (VASC) Webinar Series.

            The purpose of the series is to provide a platform for academia, government and the voluntary and community sector that work to reduce and prevent violence to present their work / research to a wider audience. This is a multidisciplinary platform and we welcome speakers from across a variety of fields such as health, crime, policing, ethnicity, migration, sociology, social work, primary care, front line services, etc.

            Our first webinar is Tuesday, 20 February 2024, 1300 – 1350. We welcome Dr Steven Maxwell, Research Associate in the School of Social & Environmental Sustainability and Associate in the School of Health and Wellbeing, at the University of Glasgow.

            Steven will present his research on intimate partner violence within the LGBTQI+ communities. He is a former mental health nurse and completed his PhD in Global Public Health at University College London in 2021. Steven’s PhD explored HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis uptake/adherence among men who have sex with men who engaged in sexualised drug use. His current interest is researching health inequities/social justices across minority and deprived populations, particularly sexual & mental health, and related substance use.   

            To register for the event in order to receive the Teams invitation and / or if interested in presenting at a future Series, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

            The VISION/VASC Webinar Series is sponsored by the UK Prevention and Research Partnership consortium, Violence, Health and Society (MR-V049879) and the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London.

            Webinar: Ontological Security Theory & Migration Studies

              Dr Alexandria Innes

              This event is in the past.

              VISION researcher and City, University of London International Politics Senior Lecturer, Dr Alexandria Innes, will be speaking with Professor Catarina Kinnvall (Lund University) and Dr Marcus Nicolson (EURAC Research) on 23 January 2024 at 1 pm CET about ontological security.

              Ontological security refers to a person’s sense of existential safety in the world. The theory was originally used by the psychiatrist R.D. Laing to explain how his patients’ experienced reality in a way that did not conform with normative experiences. Later, the theory was revisited by sociologist Anthony Giddens (1991), who emphasised the role of routines, societal trust, and biographical narratives in providing individuals with a sense of security.

              The webinar explores the use of Ontological Security Theory in migration studies and political science. Prof Kinnvall will draw on her expertise in the study of minority groups to show how a strong conceptualisation of home is key for individuals to develop feelings of ontological security and highlight the role that state-level narratives play in these processes. Dr Innes will provide insights from her research on the life histories of individual migrants to argue that a strong biographical narrative and sense of trust in their surroundings are necessary to perform security.

              This webinar is part of the EURAC Research online series “Diversity Matters”. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the webinar series explores the impact of migrations, diversities and mobilities on increasingly superdiverse territorial realities. The series is a forum for experts to share their work and expertise with an audience of fellow academics, students, decision-makers and practitioners.

              To register and for further information please see: Ontological Security Theory & Migration Studies webinar

              For any questions or comments, please contact Andri at alexandria.innes@city.ac.uk

              Making change happen in primary care: the story of IRIS

                VISION Director and Professor of Primary Care at the University of Bristol Medical School, Gene Feder, was a keynote speaker at the webinar: Making change happen in primary care – The IRIS story, on 28 November 2023.

                With his co-presenter, Medina Johnson, CEO of IRIS, they shared the story of the concept and ambition that led to the beginning of the social enterprise established in 2017 to promote and improve the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse (DVA).

                DVA is a violation of human rights that damages the health of women and families. The health care sector, including primary care, has been slow to respond to the needs of patients affected by DVA, not least because of uncertainty about the effectiveness of training clinicians in identification and engagement with survivors of abuse.

                To address that uncertainty, Gene and Medina conducted a cluster-randomised trial in Hackney and Bristol, finding that both identification and referral to specialist DVA services substantially increased in the intervention practices.

                In the webinar they mapped the (not always smooth) trajectory from trial results to a nationally available programme commissioned by Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and local authorities in over 50 areas to date, including getting into guidelines/policy, further implementation research, negotiating with commissioners, and setting up a social enterprise (IRISi) to drive the scaling up of the intervention.

                For further information please watch the webinar video below.

                For any questions or comments, please contact IRISi at info@irisi.org

                State Violence – An online research symposium

                  This event is in the past.

                  We invite you to attend State Violence: An online symposium, Thursday 19 October at 13.00 BST. This symposium brings together researchers in International Relations to discuss the conceptual development, critical concerns, causes, ethics, and empirical realities of state violence.

                  This discussion starts from the premise that we do not dedicate enough time in IR to the violence of the state. We ask what this means in global systems and structures, as well as in lived experiences and everyday realities. Themes include legal violence, epistemic violence, colonial violence, digital violence, human rights activism, and affective atmospheres of violence.

                  We invite you to participate in a thought-provoking discussion that pushes the boundaries of international relations theory. The event will involve a panel of four speakers, each taking a different approach to the theme of state violence. It will be followed by 45 minutes of participatory Q&A where we invite the audience to submit questions and fuel further discussion.

                  The speakers and chair are:

                  Leonie Fleischmann – Senior Lecturer in International Politics and Human Rights at City, University of London

                  Jasmine Gani – Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Co-Director of the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews

                  Ty Solomon – Professor of International Relations in the school of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow

                  Sasikumar Sundaram – Lecturer in International Politics, Foreign Policy and Security Studies at City, University of London

                  Chair: Alexandria Innes – Senior Lecturer of International Politics and researcher in the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London and Co-Investigator in the VISION consortium

                  To register please see: Webinar Registration – Zoom

                  The symposium is facilitated by the International Ethics Section of the International Studies Association; the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London; and the Societal Insecurities Research Cluster in International Politics at City, University of London.

                  For further information, please contact Andri at alexandria.innes@city.ac.uk

                  Webinar: Police body-worn cameras & domestic violence responses

                    Dr Mary Iliadis, Deakin University

                    This event is in the past.

                    Wednesday, 9 August, 10:30 am – Noon, in-person and online

                    The VISION Consortium and the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London, welcome Dr Mary Iliadis, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Deakin University in Australia. She will present ‘The merits and risks of police body-worn cameras in domestic and family violence responses’ based on her recent publication in Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy.

                    Dr Iliadis will discuss the significant investment by Australian police agencies in the use of body-worn cameras (BWCs). Preliminary evidence suggests that when used in the context of domestic and family violence, BWC footage may strengthen evidential cases and prosecutions. There is, however, a paucity of research examining the merits of, and risks posed by the use of BWC footage in domestic and family violence incidents and legal proceedings.

                    Notably absent in much of the literature are the views and experiences of police officers who, as initial owners of BWC footage, are likely to affect how it is produced and interpreted. 

                    Her work is the first Australian study to examine how police officers, as users and operators of BWC technology, perceive the use of BWC footage in DFV-related civil and criminal legal proceedings in two Australian state jurisdictions: Western Australia and Queensland. The findings highlight the importance of exercising domain-specific, rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to understanding the benefits and limitations of BWC technology.

                    Join us in person at the Violence & Society Centre in the Rhind building on City campus from 10:30 am – noon or online. If in person, please note this seminar was originally in A01 College Building but is now in the Violence and Society Centre, 1st floor, Rhind Building.

                    Booking is required. Please email VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk and state whether you will be in person or online. A link will be emailed on the day to those attending online. Light refreshments will be served afterwards for those in person.

                    Webinar: Hate crime and human rights – Taiwan, UK and global perspectives

                      This event is in the past.

                      28 June 2023, 12:30 – 13:40 BST, online

                      The Violence & Society Centre at City and the UKPRP VISION Consortium are pleased to invite you to Hate Crimes and Human Rights: Taiwan, UK and Global Perspectives.

                      Po-Han Lee and Wen Liu are members of TUSHRN, an ESRC funded network of sex, gender and sexuality health (SGS) researchers in Taiwan and the UK, which includes City, LSHTM, and Lancaster. They will be visiting the Centre on 28 June to present their research:

                      • Queer Politics in South/East Asia: State-Sponsored Hate and Political Cultural Relativism (by Po-Han Lee)
                      • Anti-Asian Violence Amidst US-China Geopolitical Conflicts: The Limits of “Hate” Discourses and Cross-Racial and Cross-National Solidarity (by Wen Liu)

                      Please register by emailing your interest to VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk. An invitation with the Teams link will be emailed to you 28 June.

                      Please see below for the programme and the presenters’ biographies.

                      Programme

                      12:30-12:35 Introductions

                      12:35-1:00 Queer Politics in South/East Asia: State-Sponsored Hate and Political Cultural Relativism (by Po-Han Lee)

                      1:00-1:25 Anti-Asian Violence Amidst US-China Geopolitical Conflicts: The Limits of “Hate” Discourses and Cross-Racial and Cross-National Solidarity (by Wen Liu)

                      1:25-1:40 Overall Q&A and reflections

                      Biographies

                      Po-Han (Peter) Lee:

                      Po-Han Lee is an Assistant Professor at the Global Health Program and the Institute of Health Policy and Management at National Taiwan University. Previously trained in International Law and Political Sociology, he has been studying the construction, circulation and consumption of the right to health discourse in global health policymaking. Po-Han has been a member of the Feminist Review Collective (UK) and a senior editor for Plain Law Movement, the first multimedia platform for legal and human rights education in Taiwan. He recently published the book, Towards Gender Equality in Law (2020), which he co-edited with Gizem Guney and David Davies, and his new book, Plural Feminisms: Navigating Resistance as Everyday Praxis, coedited with Sohini Chatterjee, is being published later in 2023.

                      Wen Liu:

                      Wen Liu is an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Trained as a critical social psychologist and informed by queer and critical race theory, her book project (forthcoming from the University of Illinois Press) investigates diasporic Asian American subjectivities and their geopolitical alignments in times of US-China interimperial rivalry.

                      Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash