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Affected by Rape presents an affective approach to researching sexual violence, exploring how rape
affects and how affects are implicated in the process of researching rape. With a methodological focus, this book develops nuanced insights into womxn's experiences of rape in South Africa.
Drawing on intersectional decolonial, African-centred, and feminist perspectives, it analyses how dominant understandings of sexual violence, constituted by intersecting inequalities, constrain womxn's feelings about their experiences of rape. Weaving together autoethnography, in-depth interviewing and affective reflexivity, the book demonstrates how an affective approach can enrich understandings of and responses to sexual violence. The book shows how womxn resist, refuse and subvert dominant affective responses to rape, cultivating care, connection and solidarity in the face of denial, dismissal and dehumanisation. While situated in South Africa, the book speaks to global concerns about sexual and gender-based violence, as well as the politics of knowledge production in contexts of inequality.
This book provides tools for working with affects as both epistemic and ethical resources for knowledge production. It will be valuable for researchers of sexual and gender-based violence, feminist and decolonial scholars, and those working on difficult, sensitive or stigmatised research topics.
List of contents
1. The discomfort of rape; 2. Affective entanglements: Being affected and producing an affective analysis of rape; 3. The wounds of rape in the 'rape capital of the world'; 4. The stickiness of shame; 5. The (im)possibilities of rage; 6. Hope in the wake of rape; 7. Conclusion: An expanded affective approach to disrupting sexual violence
About the author
Rebecca Helman is an honorary research fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She has worked as a researcher in South Africa and Scotland exploring sexual violence, gender inequality, suicide, and feminist methodologies. She has also previously worked as a counsellor at Rape Crisis in Cape Town.
