Storying the Immobilities of Gender Violence in the UK and Mexico - by Lesley Murray & Jess Moriarty & Paula Soto Villagrán & Olga Sabido Ramos

About the Book

This book is a unique image-based bilingual (English and Spanish) book of textual and visual narratives of gender-based violence (GBV) in the UK and Mexico, framed with a critical commentary that sets these stories in the context of GBV in both countries.

Book Synopsis

Offers an arts-based, storying, textual and visual lens on gender-based violence in the UK and Mexico.

This book is a unique image-based bilingual (English and Spanish) book of textual and visual narratives of gender-based violence (GBV) in the UK and Mexico, framed with a critical commentary that sets these stories in the context of GBV in both countries.

Visual and textual stories convey the 'felt' experience of GBV, engaging readers and audiences in the apparently mundane as well as the shocking. Such stories help contest the prominence of crime statistics in evidencing GBV, statistics which often distort experience and reflect and maintain exclusionary policies and practices, particularly for minoritised communities.

The transnational project on which this book is based invited artists and creative writers from diverse backgrounds in the UK and Mexico to respond to lived accounts of GBV in comic stories, short stories, poems, 3D installations, fine art photography, painting and film. This book brings together these visual and textual stories and sets out a series of readings and analyses that seek to further knowledge on GBV in different cultural contexts.

This book is open access under a CC BY licence.

Review Quotes

Both moving and carefully crafted, this is a collective investigation that demonstrates that where there is gender violence, there is also resistance. In two languages and with art as a common language, the stories interweave in a hopeful encounter for life.

This liberally-illustrated and well-theorised collection of stories, arising from academic-artistic research collaborations between the UK and Mexico, and told in both English and Spanish, captures experiences of gender violence ranging from the 'apparently mundane' to the shocking, in ways that evoke powerful emotional responses. Here is an exciting 'trans-sensory' methodology for others to emulate. What a feat!

Both moving and carefully crafted, this is a collective investigation that demonstrates that where there is gender violence, there is also resistance. In two languages and with art as a common language, the stories interweave in a hopeful encounter for life.-- "Esperanza Basurto Alcalde, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain"

This liberally-illustrated and well-theorised collection of stories, arising from academic-artistic research collaborations between the UK and Mexico, and told in both English and Spanish, captures experiences of gender violence ranging from the 'apparently mundane' to the shocking, in ways that evoke powerful emotional responses. Here is an exciting 'trans-sensory' methodology for others to emulate. What a feat!-- "Jackie Goode, Loughborough University, UK"

About the Author

Lesley Murray is Professor of Spatial Sociology at the University of Brighton, UK. Her most recent book is Sensory Transformations: Environments, Technologies, Sensobiographies (Routledge 2023).

Jessica Moriarty is a principal lecturer at the University of Brighton, UK where she is course leader on the Creative Writing MA. Her latest book, Conversations on Creative Process, Methods, Research and Practice, looks at feminist approaches to supporting the creative self.

Paula Soto Villagrán is Professor and Researcher of Sociology at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico. Her latest book is Una mirada de género a las prácticas de movilidad cotidiana en la Ciudad de México Aportes para la construcción de ciudades cuidadoras e inclusivas, published in 2021.

Olga Sabido Ramos is Professor and Researcher of Sociology at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico. Her latest edited book is Los sentidos del cuerpo. Un giro sensorial en la investigación social y los estudios de género (CIEG, 2019).