Abstract: Feminist research into violence, within sacred texts, traditions and contemporary contexts, tends to be motivated by a desire to confront and challenge violence. This is certainly true of my own research into how dominant theologies of marriage function as risk factors in contexts of domestic violence.
This paper explores how being ‘research active’ can be understood as a form of active resistance. It suggests that this resistance begins with paying attention to forms of violence that have been normalised or ignored. Biblical scholar Gina Hens-Piazza argues that readers must be willing to name every occurrence of violence within a text; to fail to do so is to risk failing to name and resist violence encountered in everyday living. Secondly resistance requires commitment to a range of voices and methods of investigation, rather than reliance on tried and tested methods. In so doing, such resistance is creative, in reimagining both problems and solutions.
This talk was delivered at the 2018 Religion and Rape Culture Conference. Click here to see more videos.
Header image: Ni una Menos (Not One Woman Less) march in Santa Fe, Argentina. 2018. Photograph by Agustina Girardo [via WikiCommons]
