School of Law academic tackles harmful narratives about domestic abuse
Dr Rebecca Shaw’s project ‘Domestic abuse service providers and their stories’ investigated how the stories around domestic abuse can prevent change.
The project was developed by Dr Shaw in collaboration with four service providers in the West Yorkshire area: Leeds Women’s Aid, Behind Closed Doors, Fresh Futures, and Foundations +Choices.
Funded by the ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre’s inaugural Early Career Researcher Development Fund, Dr Shaw’s project had three aims:
- Apply a methodology using narrative theory to investigate the stories of service providers’ experiences with domestic abuse victims and perpetrators.
- Assess current practitioners’ perceptions of the dominant narratives around domestic abuse (DA) and identify what kinds of narratives persist in preventing change.
- Identify potential strategies for practically changing the narrative of domestic abuse.
The project findings were disseminated to the project partners, the steering group and key stakeholders at a workshop held at the University of Leeds in March 2024, and captured in a series of illustrations.
There was an emphasis on the power of the stories, as it affects how DA is tackled. Dominant narratives included the mistrust of the police and social services, as well as myths and harmful stereotypes. The group agreed that changing the narrative was essential.
Dangerous dominant beliefs which prevent change were identified, such as “the victim should ‘just leave’ the abusive relationship”.
Service providers highlighted a continued lack of understanding and awareness of the nuances of DA across all agencies that work in the DA field.
Practitioners were clear that further work needs to be done to revise systemic and structural narratives and that educating young children should be the priority if we want to ‘re-write’ the wider cultural narrative of domestic abuse.
The workshop included discussion of next steps, and the group considered ideas for the following: Best practice training within service providers; Training for other statutory services, including police, social services and also teachers in schools; Raising awareness within the general public; and Education for children in schools.
Dr Shaw says:
This has been a timely and valuable project, and it was fascinating to work with specialist service providers who support both victim-survivors and perpetrators of domestic abuse. What it has revealed, however, is that there is still work to be done in producing the cultural shift and movement that is required for tackling domestic abuse, and truly changing the narrative. I am pleased to continue working with my partners and developing the next stage of our strategy based on the findings of this project.
The final report has now been published, and you can read two recent blogs that Dr Shaw wrote about her project for Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre, and the British Society of Criminology.
Dr Shaw is a member of both the Centre for Law and Social Justice and the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies and can be found on Twitter/X @Dr_Rebecca_Shaw
