Salvage zine-report

First edition of salvage collective report-zine ‘Salvage: Gendered Harms in Activist Communities’. September 2016.

74 page A5 zine with risograph cover designed by Lindsay Draws.

How to best deal with sexual violence in radical social movements is a contentious issue in the UK Left. The persistence of and inability to deal with sexual violence contradicts the core values of equality and social justice at the heart of radical social movements.

This zine-report brings together some of the main findings from our first research project on the perspectives and experiences of survivors. Our project had a particular focus on exploring the experiences of women, transgender and non-binary individuals. August 2015 and January 2016 we interviewed 10 survivors who had experienced sexual violence within a range of different activist groups and communities across the UK.

These accounts map out how layers of silence and denial can work in activist groups and communities to allow and maintain violence, abuse and harm. There was little evidence of a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Instead there is a need to better recognise how intersections of cissexism, homophobia, classism, racism, sexism and ableism shape survivors’ experiences and meanings of harm, available resources and solutions, and impacts of harm on individuals and communities. Understanding what can produce a ‘conducive context’ for sexual violence against women, transgender and non-binary individuals in activism offers crucial clues in how we can undo these harms. Progressive change requires no less than a reconceptualisation of culture that recognises violence as embedded in an ongoing struggle for power and control of activist arenas.

You can download a copy of this zine-report for free here: https://projectsalvage.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/salvage-report-zine-september-20162.pdf