Gender, Violence and Exploitation

This thematic group focuses on gender, violence and exploitation in the context of bordering practices and border control. This focus includes gendered violence ranging from domestic and family violence to sexual harassment in the workplace to sexual violence in the border crossing: the view of where and how bordering practices contribute to and sustain violence and exploitation is an important area of development. Increasingly there is a recognition that exploitation that falls under the umbrella term of modern slavery intersects with interpersonal violence including domestic and family violence, but there is little accountability for the structural violence of migration and administrative systems that exclude or limit support for non-citizens and which empower perpetrators to act with impunity. This is a key focus of the group, alongside questions of accountability for violence.

This group aims to bring together critical, interdisciplinary research that is focused on interrogating how we name and respond to gendered violence and exploitation, and the impact and influence of bordering practices.

The work in these thematic group will illuminate the connections between border control, criminal justice systems (including law and policing), labour regulation systems and the design and operation of intervention and support systems.

The group is founded on the connection with advocacy: supporting reform and interventions across jurisdictions and seeks to sustain and build connections with civil society.

We aim to create an interdisciplinary research hub. We will publish themed posts on the Border Criminologies blog, create hybrid panel discussions that bring together academics, policymakers, and civil society, promote and build cross-jurisdictional research and advocacy and develop opportunities for high quality, open access research publications and encourage international research partnerships to build the ongoing critical account of the intersections of gender, violence and exploitation.

Please contact Marie Segrave (marie.segrave@unimelb.edu.au) or Siru Tan (sj.tan@unimelb.edu.au) for more information and to join the group.