Researching violence with young people is fraught with conceptual, ethical and methodological challenges. Violence is shrouded in power dynamics and emotions that constrain speaking out, with violence often underreported, and inadequately addressed. In this seminar, we will discuss how the qualitative research team from the Contexts of Violence in Adolescence Cohort study (CoVAC) have engaged with young people in Luwero, Uganda over several years (2018-2022), to learn about their experiences and perspectives on violence. CoVAC is a mixed methods, longitudinal study on how family, peer, school and community contexts affect young people’s experiences of violence in adolescence and early adulthood. It is a multi-disciplinary collaboration of researchers and practitioners in Uganda and the UK, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UCL Institute for Education and Raising Voices, an activist organization based in Uganda that prevents violence against women and children. Using a multi-dimensional framing of violence as a web of power, our analysis has explored material, structural and symbolic forces shaping young people’s experiences of violence, their subjectivities, and ways of resisting. During the seminar, we will share our analysis of the multi-faceted views narrated by young people on corporal punishment in schools, and on interventions, including legal bans. We will trace how their perspectives related to their shifting subject positions within the web of power, and consider the implications for violence prevention interventions in schools.

Booking is required for people outside of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI).
DSPI Members do not need to register.

This talk is part of the DSPI Michaelmas Term Seminar Series 2024