Staff profile

Title of study

Sensemaking with Scrapbooking: How Victim-Survivors Make Sense(s) of Sexual Violence in their Everyday Lives.

Field of study

I’m interested in the everyday and changing materials, environments, interactions and institutions which inform victim-survivors’ understandings of their experiences. I understand sensemaking as an ongoing, complex and pluralistic process which is both situated and embodied: sensemaking is making sense(s) with thesenses. This process is explored in my research through a methodology I call ‘scrapbooking’.

Since 2016 I have been working on and developing the conceptual, methodological, therapeutic and pedagogic possibilities of scrapbooking (autoethnographically, one-on-one, in groups and with organisations) as a means of permitting multiple and inclusive modes of non-linear, non-narrative expression and representation.

My master’s research piloted both hard and digital scrapbooking (appropriating social media platforms to act as digital tools) in order to explore how women experience and define men’s everyday intrusive behaviours.

I am now beginning my second year of doctoral study and undertaking empirical research with victim-survivors and the organisations and practitioners charged with aiding them. I’m interested both in accessing the expertise of the latter on the issues which victim-survivors face and also in observing their creation of cultures of knowledge which inform wider debates.

 

Biography

My doctoral research is being carried out within the Department of Sociology and the Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse. I joined the department as an undergraduate in 2013 and received a scholarship from the ESRC in 2016 to undertake a master’s degree training in Social Research Methods followed by three years of doctoral study.

I’m particularly interested in academic, activist and practitioner relationships and on how social theories and concepts ‘work’ for activist and practitioner settings. I have worked and volunteered in mental health support work since I was seventeen and been a helpline volunteer at Rape Crisis for the last five years.

 

Teaching

Guest lecturer on modules ‘Criminal Justice Landscapes’ and ‘Violence and Abuse’

Seminar leader on ‘Crime, Justice and the Sex Industry’

 

Research Interests

Feminist theory and praxis

Queer theory and praxis

Intersectionality

Culture, media and everyday life

Sexual violence

Men’s violence against women and children

Creative and arts-based research methods and methodologies

Gender and sexuality

Sexual and relationship ethics and practice 

Onto-epistemologies

 

Contact

You can email me at r.g.walling-wefelmeyer@durham.ac.uk or follow me on twitter @Rosa_WallWefel 

I’m always happy to chat about my research, share resources and collaborate.

I’m also happy to hear from undergraduates with questions about transitioning to postgraduate study or research.

Journal Article

• Walling-Wefelmeyer, Ros (2021). The Methodological Potential of Scrapbooking: Theory, Application, and Evaluation. Sociological Research Online 26(1): 3-26.
• Walling-Wefelmeyer, Ros (2019). Scrapbooking men's intrusions: ‘It's nice to have a place where you can rant about things that people normally tell you you're over-reacting about’. Women's Studies International Forum 75: 102242.