By Dr William Tantam, Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, School of Arts
Dr William Tantam tells us about a collaborative project which sought to challenge the silencing of child sexual abuse. Taking an arts-led approach, William and his collaborators produced a ‘zine’ to engage mental health professionals, academics, and most importantly, survivors of child sexual abuse, placing their voices at the centre of clinical and policy discussions. The project received an AHRC Impact Acceleration Account award and William has since received a REPHRAIN grant to further his research.
‘Voicing Silence: amplifying the voices of victims and survivors of non-recent child sexual abuse’ sought to challenge the silencing of child sexual abuse through attention to the ways in which victims and survivors are, or have been, silenced. This silencing includes inappropriate or improper responses to disclosures of sexual abuse, poor follow up, disbelieving, and no further action taken to reporting. It also includes the pervasive cultures of silence that coalesce around child sexual abuse which make it more difficult for victims and survivors to report at the time of the abuse, and to delay disclosing the sexual abuse until later in life.
The Breaking Silences zine produced by William and his collaborators.
- To navigate through the zine, click on the arrow icons in the bottom left and right of the zine.
- To view the zine in full screen, click on the second icon in the top right of the zine.
The zine and workshop emerged from a network of academics, clinicians, therapists, and activists (some of whom are victims and survivors). At the heart of the group was a commitment to centring the needs and perspectives of victims and survivors, and ensuring that their voices feed into practice and policy. Network members have also disseminated the zine in their different academic, clinical, and activist communities in order to reach as wide an audience as possible, including in NHS trusts, clinical training groups, and academic environments. It is also being used as a learning material at the Tavistock Trauma Centre for professionals likely to receive disclosures of child sexual abuse.
“We wanted a zine that captured the challenges of child sexual abuse and silences, but which also captured the hope and possibilities enabled by survivor-centred approaches“
The process of producing the zine enabled the group to clarify our meanings and understandings. In preparation, each of us submitted two sentences of what we would like to say in the zine. Armed with Pritt sticks and sheets of coloured card we spent two hours in groups cutting up the sentences, placing them in different orders, and considering how the meaning, tone, and voice changed as we spliced together different passages. Often these new combinations generated deeper meaning and turns of phrase, or produced new insights that we hadn’t quite articulated in our initial attempts. We were inspired by the wonderful ‘Mad Zines’ project and tried to draw on some of the energy and vitality produced in their outputs.
A further strength – and really the heart of the final output – was the creative contributions of members of the group. Dr Khadj Rouf (zine co-editor and Consultant Clinical Psychologist with Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust) provided beautiful poetry, complemented by a cover artwork by Dr Sara Scott, and incredible illustrations provided by the multi-talented Jenissa Paharia. We wanted a zine that captured the challenges of child sexual abuse and silences, but which also captured the hope and possibilities enabled by survivor-centred approaches.
“At the heart of the group was a commitment to centring the needs and perspectives of victims and survivors, and ensuring that their voices feed into practice and policy”
Drawing on this initial project, and a further ESRC IAA grant exploring how to improve responses to disclosures of child sexual abuse, I have developed a further project into the particular challenges faced by survivors of online-facilitated child sexual abuse, funded by REPHRAIN. Working with Dr Susanna Alyce, Co-Investigator, this new project incorporates a survivor-produced ‘zine’ that will provide key learning into this area that remains under-explored, and from the people most impacted by these insights. We are delighted to be working with SARSAS, the Survivor’s Trust, and Survivors Voices in this new project which hopes to deploy survivor-centred insights for real-world change.
Dr William Tantam is Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology with research interests in trauma and gendered violence, and technology-facilitated sexual abuse. To find out more about William’s research, the Breaking Silences zine and his new REPHRAIN grant, please email william.tantam@bristol.ac.uk.
It’s International Translation Day, and I’m a translator. When I tell people, they pause and then they look at me triumphantly, saying that, surely, this particular foreign word they know could not possibly be translated into English. In a way, they’re right, but in practical terms, they’re not. Here’s why.