The atmosphere of the ward: attunements and attachments of everyday life for patients on a medium-secure forensic psychiatric unit

The climate or atmosphere of a ward in secure psychiatric care is typically studied by examining the relationship between social and environmental factors. However the experiences of patients are irreducible to a set of discrete dimensions or factors. Drawing on recent work in affect theory and architectural studies, we argue for an approach to atmosphere that places it 'in between' persons and space, as a 'spatially extended quality of feeling' (cf. Böhme, 2017a) of which patients are intimately aware. The paper discusses empirical material drawn from a broader study of inpatient medium-secure forensic care in a large hospital in the South of England. We show how the process of becoming attuned to the fluctuations and shifts in the atmosphere of the ward is a critical aspect of everyday life for patients. Attunement cuts across existing notions of power and resistance in these settings. We also demonstrate how attachments to a range of objects, some created by patients, can either expand or punctualize attunement, enabling change in the overall atmosphere. We conclude by speculating on how we might rethink spaces of recovery on an ethospheric basis

Feeling ‘like a minority…a pathology’: interpreting race from research with African and Caribbean women on violence and abuse

Qualitative researchers are often advised to use their emotional responses to data, and participants’ experiences are understood through those of researchers’, how this process unfolds is less clear. This paper is about role of feelings for the qualitative researcher at different stages of the process and offers strategies for working through, ‘using’ and ‘feeling together with’ participants, reflections on lived experiences. I interviewed nine African and Caribbean heritage British women about their experiences of violence and abuse where one described feeling ‘like a minority…a pathology’. This paper describes my responses to experiences of racialised and gendered intrusion in interviews, later reflection and analytic work. The paper brings recognition to a stigmatised and hidden process within qualitative interviews and data interpretation. This serves to amplify the impact of injustice and adverse experiences for participants, and researchers, and to a wider audience, and to validate its existence and emotional burden as a legitimate and crucial stage of qualitative data analysis

Knowing what I know now : black women talk about violence inside and outside the home

There is a notable gap in empirical studies on Black women’s lived experiences in the UK in general and of violence in particular. This thesis explores lived experiences of violence and abuse for nine African and Caribbean heritage women, including seeking help and receiving support, legacies for the body and encounters in public spaces that leave feelings of discomfort. Fifteen participants were interviewed in total: six formed a sample of experts who work in violence support services, research and health services; and nine victim-survivors participated in a two or three stage life history interview process. The expert participants were given three case studies prior to taking part in semi-structured interviews to explore issues for African and Caribbean heritage women. During life history interviews research participants were invited to bring along personal photographs to assist with speaking about past experiences of violence and abuse, drew maps of their routes to seeking help, annotated diagrams of how they have related to their bodies over the years and produced photographs of spaces, places and objects of current importance to them. The thesis mapped ways in women’s potential for participation in social life was delimited by violence and abuse, how their survival was premised on their skill in managing embodied burdens and through daily acts of self-renewal. The contribution to knowledge of this thesis are through the conceptual terms: ‘felt intensities‘; ‘a continuum of oppression’; ‘liminal displacement’; ‘a nugatory self’; ‘racialised gendered shame’; and ‘exhausting liminal rumination’ that describe the embodied burdens carried by African and Caribbean heritage women as knowers and to suggest meeting their needs within the everyday spaces they inhabit. Further explorations are required into the intersectional features of women’s lives to explore whether African and Caribbean heritage women have voice and visibility in policy, whether and how their needs are met and for this to influence the commissioning of services

From ‘no means no’ to ‘an enthusiastic yes’: changing the discourse on sexual consent through sex and relationships education

How sexual consent should be discussed with young people is the subject of current policy debates and contestations in the UK. While the current Westminster government violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy (Home Office, 2011) and subsequent action plans recognise the importance of addressing consent, with no statutory relationships and sex education there are few contexts in which these conversations with young people routinely take place. Organisations that work with young people as victims/survivors of violence and through school-based primary prevention programmes have long identified sexual consent as an issue which requires specialist attention and intervention. In this chapter, we present findings from research with young people in England about their understandings of sexual consent. The study was carried out on behalf of the Office of the Children's Commissioner as part of their two-year inquiry into sexual exploitation in the context of gangs and groups. Our brief was to explore, not just how young people understood sexual consent, but the influences and contexts in which they negotiated it. Here, we also highlight two aspects of our wider discussions with participants - pornography and 'man points' - as significant contextual backdrops of young people's views. We conclude with the implications of sex and relationships education (SRE), including a brief overview of how young people we talked with reflected on school-based sex education

Professional boundaries between faculty/staff and students in UK higher education : Students’ levels of comfort with personal and sexualised interactions

The concept of ‘professional boundaries’ – widely used in sectors where professional relationships between adults are regulated – has not commonly been drawn on in higher education (HE) to understand and denote appropriate relationships between faculty or staff and students. Nevertheless, in recent years the question of how to regulate sexual and romantic relationships between faculty/staff and students has been a developing policy concern within HE institutions internationally. In order to contribute to empirically-informed policy development in this area, this article explores students’ levels of comfort with different sexualised and non-sexualised behaviours from staff/faculty, drawing on data from 1492 students from a national survey carried out in the United Kingdom, initially published in the National Union of Students’ report Power in the Academy (2018). New analysis on this data is introduced, outlining scales of ‘personal’ and ‘sexualised’ interactions, which reveal the patterns of comfort and discomfort across different demographic groups of students, most notably women, LGBTQ+ students, and Black and Asian students. The analysis identifies areas of interaction with staff/faculty that are of concern to different groups of students, calling into question existing policy frameworks such as conflict of interest policies and varying levels of regulation for undergraduate and postgraduate students. In light of these findings, the article makes two recommendations: first, that training on professional boundaries should be included in higher education teaching qualifications, and second, for the development of shared norms around professional boundaries within academic departments and professional societies

Facing the void: Recollections of embodying fear in the space of childhood homes

Homes occupy a complex and contradictory space in our lived, symbolic and imaginary geographies. Often idealised as a sanctuary, homes are also places of conflict, tension and danger. The research presented in this paper used a Memory Work Group method to explore women's recollections of embodying fear as children, in the context of their childhood homes. Our analysis suggests that experiences of fear were remembered in terms of a sense of separation, or being in a relational void. This void can be described as a felt and sensed relational space, characterised by a lack of communication and sense of nothingness. As such, others were present, but the child experienced not being seen/not seeing others, simultaneously being there with the other, but also experiencing not existing to the other. We suggest here that remembered experiences of fear were lived through materially, and in process with objects and spaces not as passive backdrops, but as giving opportunity to and participating in meaning making and the management of the embodiment of fear, and felt sense of relational void. These findings are discussed in relation to the role of children's imagination in navigating the disparity between child and adult experiences of the world, as well as the potential role of memory as a route to bridging the gap between child and adult understandings and experiences of embodying emotion