The Cultural Politics of Child Sexual Abuse Literacy in the Last 30 Years

Researcher: Dr Abigail Bray

The overall purpose of this project is to research transformations in the cultural politics of child sexual abuse literacy in the last thirty years with a particular focus on (a) the relationship between commonsense and expert state therapeutic knowledge, (b) changing representations of the victim, and (c) the strategic role 'family values' play in advocating for children's rights. My use of the term 'child sexual abuse literacy' calls attention to the presence of an effective or socially useful interdisciplinary knowledge of child abuse which incorporates expert and commonsense awareness of the symptoms of child sexual abuse, the pathology of abusers and victims, knowledge of state interventions, legislation and protection, and the rights of the victim and the rights and duties of someone who knows of a perpetrator or a victim. I will be researching representations in film, literature, popular culture in general, as well as conducting interdisciplinary research into expert knowledge. Currently I am exploring the function of the incest taboo in structuralist and poststructuralist thought with a particular focus on Oedipus, Antigone, the symbolic and childhood subjectivity in general.

Publications
(2009) 'The gaze that dare not speak its name: Bill Henson and child sexual
abuse moral panics' in Getting Real! Challenging the Sexualisation of
Girls. Edited by Melinda Tankard Reist, Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2009. (in press)

(2009) Governing the Gaze: Child Sexual Abuse Moral Panics and the Post-feminist Blind Spot, Feminist Media Studies, 9:2 173-191.

(2008) 'The Question of Intolerance: 'Corporate Paedophilia' and Child Sexual Abuse Moral Panics', Australian Feminist Studies  23:57: 323-342.