City Research Online

Abstract

This thesis investigates how inequalities are embedded in systems and practices of knowledge production on violence. Despite the proliferation of critical research on the relationship between violence and inequalities, marginalised experiences of violence are routinely excluded from national statistics underpinning mainstream evidence-building and policymaking on violence. The role of inequalities in knowledge production of violence is often overlooked and under-evidenced, despite its impact on research and policymaking in the field of violence reduction.

In addressing my core research questions - How do inequalities shape the production of knowledge on violence? How can we better include, represent, and prioritise marginalised experiences of violence? – I take a critical intersectional approach to investigating the Sociology of Knowledge’s assertion that knowledge is socially constructed by centralising intersecting gendered, ethnic, and migration-based inequalities in understanding knowledge pathways and practices in national statistics. Through this framework, I apply a joint de/reconstructivist approach and quantitative intersectional methodology to critiquing and reshaping practices of knowledge production within the Crime Survey for England and Wales, the UK’s most reliable data source for national statistics and policymaking on violence.

Through four empirical applications, I investigate the role of inequalities at distinctive stages of knowledge production, focusing on measuring violence and inequality dimensions, categorising ethnic groups, navigating barriers to disclosure, and monitoring inequalities in violence trends. Each application addresses my two main research aims: (1) revealing how inequalities are embedded in knowledge production on violence through practices of epistemic marginalisation, and (2) contributing new knowledge on inequalities in violence through alternative knowledge production practices.

Through my quantitative intersectional analyses of multiple stages of knowledge production, I found that marginalised groups experienced disproportionately high levels of fear of violence by cross-cutting inequality dimensions and faced greater barriers to violence disclosure, that excluded and misrepresented ethnic groups experienced increased violence victimisation, and that inequalities in violence trends varied significantly under hostile policy regimes. In particular, I found that minoritised ethnic migrant women were most likely to experience barriers to disclosure, disproportionately high levels of fear of violence, and a relative increase in violence victimisation during the Hostile Environment. Taken together, these findings not only contribute new knowledge to the field of violence and inequalities, but critically disrupt how knowledge is produced through national statistics by evidencing the practices and effects of epistemic marginalisation and revealing how new pathways to knowledge production may mitigate, rather than entrench, violence vulnerabilisation.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > School of Policy & Global Affairs Doctoral Theses School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology Doctoral Theses

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