Researching the Un/Speakability of Gender-Based Violence in Academia: Promoting an Interdisciplinary, Intersectional, and Multi-Level Context-Oriented Approach
Researching the Un/Speakability of Gender-Based Violence in Academia: Promoting an Interdisciplinary, Intersectional, and Multi-Level Context-Oriented Approach

Summary/Abstract: This paper introduces an interdisciplinary, context-oriented, and multi-level approach to analysing the un/speakability of gender-based violence (GBV) in academia. It argues that in-depth understandings of GBV require attention to nationally and culturally embedded contexts alongside interdisciplinarity. Drawing on cultural studies, gender studies, and linguistics, the approach adopts a social constructivist perspective in which gender and sexuality are shaped by power relations and intersectional positionalities manifested in (non-)verbal practices and performances. Building on insights from the UniSAFE study, the contribution suggests going beyond existing approaches by proposing a multi-level, discourse-based framework encompassing macro-/socio-cultural, meso-/organisational and micro-/individual dimensions. This allows for a profound and contextualised understanding of the ambiguities, grey zones and difficulties of voicing GBV. It also links individual lived experiences to larger systems of power. The proposed research design integrates qualitative and quantitative methods, using multiple sites, researchers and sources. It offers a robust framework to examine GBV in Central and Eastern European academia and beyond.

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