Why “beyond the rapist”?

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Kate Lockwood Harris
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Title Ix ◽  
Systemic Change ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Organizational Dynamics ◽  
Feminist New Materialism ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
Organization Communication

This first chapter outlines reasons why considering campus sexual violence “beyond the rapist” matters. Many feminists assert that, to stop sexual violence, people must pay attention to the systems that surround it. Noticing those systems can be difficult, however, because popular discussions suggest that one individual rapes another. This conceptualization of sexual violence can obscure the processes and organizational dynamics that support assaults. By focusing on the growing movement around Title IX and rape at U.S. colleges and universities, the chapter introduces a key argument of the book: Feminist new materialist theories can help organizations and activists focus “beyond the rapist” and prompt systemic change. The chapter offers definitions of the book’s key terms—organization, communication, and sexual violence—as well as an overview of feminist new materialism and Title IX.

The promise and peril of agency as motion: A feminist new materialist approach to sexual violence and sexual harassment

Organization ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 660-679
Author(s):  
Kate Lockwood Harris ◽  
Megan McFarlane ◽  
Valerie Wieskamp
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Organizational Dynamics ◽  
Primary Method ◽  
Perpetual Motion ◽  
Organizational Problem ◽  
The Military ◽  
Forms Of Violence

Organizational scholars have established that sexual harassment, the most studied kind of sexual violence, is an organizational problem. Extending this work, we analyze two critical events regarding sexual violence in the United States—one in the military and another at a university—in which discourse detracts from understanding the problem in this way. We draw upon feminist new materialism and its primary method—diffraction—to track ‘cuts’, the practices that simplify and pause agency’s complex, perpetual motions. Our analysis shows that agency moves in discussions about the aftermath of violence. That momentum highlights the organization’s capacity to respond to rape. Even so, during discussions about enacting violence, the perpetual motion of agency congeals around discrete humans, thereby maintaining assault as an individual act. These cuts, whereby agency pauses on individual perpetrators, obscure how organizational dynamics make sexual violence more or less likely to occur. We suggest that a focus on agency’s kinetic qualities can help feminist scholars continue to highlight how the systemic aspects of harassment and other forms of violence become hard to notice.

Campus Sexual Violence and Title IX: What is the Role of Restorative Justice Now?

2021 ◽  
pp. 155708512110626
Author(s):  
Shauntey James ◽  
Melanie D. Hetzel-Riggin
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Title Ix ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages

Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) have used restorative justice (RJ) to address sexual misconduct on college campuses under Title IX. In 2020, Title IX guidance was codified. The application of RJ under the new policy may create procedural and distributive justice issues. This article (1) defines the new policy; (2) explores suitability of RJ to sexual misconduct and specifically yellow zone behavior under the new policy; (3) discusses justice for the various stakeholders under the guise of advantages and disadvantages; and (4) makes recommendations to strengthen the choice of either implementing or not implementing restorative justice.

The Promise of Title IX: Sexual Violence and the Law

Dissent ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 135-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Brodsky ◽  
Elizabeth Deutsch
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Title Ix ◽  
The Law

scholarly journals Sexual Violence on Religious Campuses

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Vanderwoerd ◽  
Albert Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Christian Colleges ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Exploratory Investigation ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Religious Colleges ◽  
Public Colleges And Universities ◽  
Unwanted Sexual Contact

Religious colleges and universities make up a substantial segment of the higher education landscape in North America, but the incidence of sexual violence on these campuses remains understudied. This study estimates the incidence of sexual violence on independent Christian campuses using a sample of part-time and full-time undergraduate students (N = 668) from eight private Christian colleges in Ontario, Canada. Using two widely used measures of sexual violence enabled comparisons with studies of self-reported incidents at secular and public colleges and universities. The findings show that 18% of women at religious colleges reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact within the past year, compared to studies of self-reported rates on secular campuses ranging from 21.4% to 31.4%. Exploratory investigation of factors related to victimization suggests that religious colleges may provide a “moral community” that could reduce the risk of sexual violence.  

An organization’s relationship to violence

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-48
Author(s):  
Kate Lockwood Harris
Keyword(s):  
New Materialism ◽  
Material World ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The World ◽  
Feminist New Materialism

Two sets of assumptions—ones about communication and ones about agency—shape debates over the violence–organization relationship. When scholars and laypersons suggest that words are mere symbols that represent the world and correspond to things in it, communication remains a way to describe violence. Under this representationalist line of thinking, communication is split from the material world and cannot do harm. Similarly, when people assume that agency is a human’s intentional decision about how to act, the broader processes that inform action fade from view. An individual perpetrator becomes the sole violent actor. Both sets of assumptions make it difficult to conceptualize an organization’s role in violence. This chapter relies on feminist new materialism to problematize these assumptions. After providing an overview of the theory’s distinctive features, the chapter shows its resonances with existing scholarship on communication, agency, and organizations. These resonances provide a framework for understanding organizations to be more than mere sites for violence.

scholarly journals Communication and Feminist New Materialism: Methodologies to understand the continuum between matter and discourse

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2018) ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Beatriz Revelles-Benavente ◽  
Ana M. González Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Feminist Politics ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Trapping Force ◽  
Communicative Process ◽  
Feminist New Materialism ◽  
The Continuum

The relationship between literature and social networking sites (SNS) is a material context in which authors and readers merge into each other to create a literary communicative process that transforms contemporary politics. The aim of this paper is to analyse the communicative process by investigating the continuum between matter and discourse from a new materialist approach. From social sites, we can understand how elements, such as readers, authors, context, novels, culture and digital platforms, “intra-act” (Barad 2007) to create an affecting/ed communicative process. We propose feminist new materialism as a theoretical terrain that helps to reconfigure politics and communication in order to build a methodological framework for contemporary feminist politics and theory related to Literature. Using a digital genealogy and the theory of new materialism, we identify communication in literature as a trapping force in which different elements intra-act with each other and become indivisible. Affecting/ed communication is a dynamic conceptualization, a literary activity in which active agents participate in creative spaces for future social changes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document