The issue
In December 2015, England and Wales became the first jurisdiction in the world to make “controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship” an offence. Although legal developments are recent and ever-evolving, coercive control has a long and disturbing history in both real life and fiction. The crime of coercive control may involve sustained exploitation, deprivation, regulation, isolation, and degradation, but a troubling misconception persists: that domestic abuse is limited to physical, rather than psychological, violence.
The research
This research project shows that a diverse range of writers from across the past two centuries have demonstrated a shrewd understanding of the workings and impact of coercive control, and many have also imagined or anticipated its relationship to the law.
Dr Roche and Professor Mullin are currently editing a volume of essays on Narratives of Coercive Control: Literature and the Law, which brings together research on writers ranging from the Brontës to Carmen Maria Machado. In a chapter of her first book, The Outside Thing: Modernist Lesbian Romance (Columbia University Press, 2019; a Choice Outstanding Academic Title), Dr Roche examines the queer writer Radclyffe Hall’s coercive control of another woman in the 1930s and 40s. She discusses her research on LGBTQ+ narratives of psychological abuse in this interview for The For Baby’s Sake Trust.
Leading an international network of researchers, Dr Roche is exploring how narratives of coercive control can inform and empower readers and amplify the voices of survivors. As part of their research, Dr Roche and Professor Mullin have worked with the Bradford-based charity Staying Put to organise a series of reading and creative writing workshops for women with lived experience of domestic abuse and sexual violence. The group’s creative work, including posters printed at York’s Thin Ice Press, currently forms part of an exhibition titled No Net Ensnares Me: Local Narratives of Coercive Control, curated by Dr Roche and Professor Mullin, at Keighley Library.
The outcome
One member of the reading and creative writing group said: “I haven't been able to express my feelings in writing for a long time. The group has helped me to move on, to feel more confident and valued. The praise for my writing has helped me feel like I can do something skilful.” Another added: “I have been able to process strong emotions around my identity, wounds I carried and how many of us in the group have been able to relate to each other through writing. The workshops were emotive but extremely useful in being able to manage memories of abuse and how we hold the trauma in our bodies.”
The workshops now form part of Staying Put’s Intervention and Prevention provision for women in refuges. They show how imaginative writing can serve both a therapeutic and an educative purpose, helping to prevent future abuse. Debbie Kester, Digital Communications Manager at Staying Put, said: “As part of the workshops, these brave women often discussed difficult topics, but they were given the confidence to share their thoughts and tap into their creative processes in an environment that was safe and respectful. So many times we heard women say ‘that could have been me’ or ‘that was my experience’ when reading work by published writers and each other. It was inspiring to see the progress they made in their journey toward healing.”
