Bridget Harris

Technology facilitated coercive control: domestic violence and the competing roles of digital media platforms

Abstract This article describes domestic violence as a key context of online misogyny, foregrounding the role of digital media in mediating, coordinating, and regulating it; and proposing an agenda for future research. Scholars and anti-violence advocates have documented the ways digital media exacerbate existing patterns of gendered violence and introduce new modes of abuse, a trend highlighted by this special issue. We propose the term “technology facilitated coercive control” (TFCC) to encompass the technological and relational aspects of patterns of abuse against intimate partners. Our definition of TFCC is grounded in the understanding of domestic violence (DV) as coercive, controlling, and profoundly contextualised in relationship dynamics, cultural norms, and structural inequality. We situate TFCC within the multiple affordances and modes of governance of digital media platforms for amplifying and ameliorating abuse. In addition to investigating TFCC, scholars are beginning to document the ways platforms can engender counter-misogynistic discourse, and are powerful actors for positive change via the regulation and governance of online abuse. Accordingly, we propose four key directions for a TFCC research agenda that recognises and asks new questions about the role of digital media platforms as both facilitators of abuse and potential partners in TFCC prevention and intervention.

Capturing crime in the antipodes: Colonist cultural representation of Indigeneity

This chapter adopts a Southern criminological lens, which allows the authors to explore how colonialism has been constructed and depicted in museums within both regional and urban Australia. By studying spatial and historical silences in Australian museums, this chapter offers a consistent frame to chronologically chart Anglo-Australian depictions of Indigeneity, imperialism and violence wielded by the state. As this chapter will argue, museums can often reflect Westernized (white) conceptualizations about Indigeneity and the state violence involved in colonization, which actively re-enforces popular views and influences sociopolitical visions of identity, the state and justice.

Just Spaces: Community Legal Centres as Levelling Places of Law

The role that space and location plays in developing a community legal centre - from a formal legal space of privilege and exclusion to open accessible places that foster community involvement - break down of the power imbalance in lawyer and client interactions - developments in online service delivery - social networking and communication programs.