Disrupting the (Gendered) Form Workshop Organisers

Disrupting the (Gendered) Form emerged from the create discussions of the organisers.

Zoe Tongue (She/They)

The transition to attending an elitist institution as an undergraduate was difficult and often isolating – and I say this as a white, able-bodied, British person with all the relative privilege that brings. Finding a home in feminist academic spaces, I am now a PhD candidate at Durham University Law School where I research on abortion and human rights. My research centres on intersectionality, feminist philosophical perspectives, and reproductive justice to think about working towards universal access to reproductive healthcare and, more broadly, a better feminist future.

During the past two years of this pandemic, I have been part of some amazing online networks (shoutout to Abortion Book Club) but found that I missed the connections that can only come from physical interaction with my peers. You know you need to be around people again when conversations with your pet hamster (he is named Frodo, for anyone interested) become the highlight of your day. At the same time, traditional conferences can sometimes trigger the same feelings and anxieties I had as an undergraduate – that I don’t belong. What we wanted to do with our Disrupting the Gendered Form workshop is to create this space for connection and collaboration that we have been lacking for the past few years, without perpetuating many of the problems with exclusionary academic structures. 

Joy Twemlow

Anytime I am in a position where I must write a bio I mainly identify as a person who hates writing bios. I think my aversion comes from having difficulty defining my place both within and outside of academia. I’ve studied across law, politics, philosophy, diplomacy and psychology in New Zealand, Australia and now I’m a PhD candidate the UK at Durham Law School. I’m mixed race but being a combination of two hegemonic cultures (Pākehā NZ and Japanese) means that which side was ‘othered’ depended on my context. I grew up on welfare, but my class status shifted depending on where I found myself – and where I found myself often changed every year of my life.

I think this shifting identity is why I am so attracted to my research area of phenomenology (which might be my only stable personality trait). As a philosophical method that examines phenomena from the position of embedded, embodied and active engagement in the world it helps me understand how our engagement with our shared world is vastly shaped by our positionality. Some of these orientations pivot depending on context (I have found my identity as a New Zealander heightened after moving to the UK) and some of the constant orientation points (e.g. embodying a cis female body) provide the basis for reflecting on differences between contexts. This phenomenological praxis, which gives sense to my own lived experience, is the basis of the critical work I undertake through my research into law and philosophy.

Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer

My research asks the question of how best to end violence, inequality and harm and ensure that research supports rather than undermines this endeavour. To that end I have worked on several creative participatory projects, whether with school children imagining hopeful futures or devising soundscapes with diverse victim-survivors of domestic violence. I am fascinated both by different processes of meaning-making and by how ideal practice is shaped by technology, resource constraints and entrenched intersectional power dynamics.  
 
I am currently a post-doctoral research associate on a project improving police responses to sexual violence in England and Wales. This work complements my doctoral research, in which I explored how one Rape Crisis centre and twenty-three diverse adults made sense of sexual violence. Here, I developed longitudinal physical and digital scrapbooks to better contain complexity, ambiguity and mixed materials.  
 
Throughout my PhD, I wrestled constantly with questions about the purpose and place of me and my work. Therefore, I am keen to make space for other doctoral researchers to pose questions and co-create some hopeful answers.