Resisting Gender-Based Violence and Injustice Through Activism with Biblical Texts and Images

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As highlighted in UN Sustainable Development Goal #5, gender-based violence and inequality (GBV/I) disproportionately deprive women and girls of personal, social and economic fulfillment and health: physical, emotional and mental. All countries at the centre of this project - South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, UK - are impacted by GBV/I but in South Africa and Lesotho, which have among the highest rates of reported rape worldwide, the situation is particularly acute. In all of South Africa, Lesotho and Botswana, moreover, GBV is compounded by high risk of HIV infection, with socio-economically deprived women and girls particularly vulnerable to both GBV and the hardships procured by HIV and Aids.Expertise and resources from the Arts & Humanities (A&H) alongside targeted international collaboration can go a long way to providing sustainable support and development in innovative and effective ways. The A&H expertise focal to this project focuses especially on two disciplines: - biblical studies, because the Bible is highly influential and unprecedentedly available (in all indigenous languages) in all project countries, which all have Christian-dominant populations;- gender studies, because GBV/I perpetuates damaging gender stereotypes which must be fully understood first to be effectively detoxified and resisted.Another area of A&H expertise applied in the project is music and performance arts, in order to foster a creative, interactive and sustainable media of resistance. Outputs in this area - such as photographs, songs, survivor stories and live performance - also lend themselves to self-representation, allowing persons vulnerable to GBV (foremost girls and women but also members of the LGBTQ community) unfiltered media of expression, aimed at all of healing, empowerment and solidarity.To address especially UN sustainable development goals pertaining to gender equality (#5), quality education (#4) and peace- and justice- building (#16), the project will: 1) Harness energy, expertise and support of A&H academics in the three southern African project countries as well as in the UK and direct these towards social activism in the area of GBV through working together with relevant NGOs and community groups. The project's three core facilitators (one based in Botswana, two in the UK) are all biblical scholars, with each contributing also distinctive expertise in the areas of sexuality, HIV-theology or ethnicity. All have associations with NGOs and community groups active in addressing GBV/I, as well as passion for social justice.2) Facilitate existing resources and create also new ones that will in a series of workshops explore the relationship between the Bible and GBV/I. Southern African NGOs and community groups are doing fabulous work in demanding circumstances but this is not always effectively shared due to inadequate networks. The project's facilitators will train at an established centre of socially engaged Bible study, the Ujamaa Centre in South Africa, and disseminate tried and tested resources as well as devise new ones to be trialled in a series of workshops in both Botswana and Lesotho.3) Produce collaboratively artistic and self-representational media that actively resist GBV/I. Alongside educational and information resources produced in and for workshops, the project will facilitate also creative ways promoting personal expression and healing as well as community mobilization and solidarity. 4) Disseminate information and resources in academic and popular forums, including on the open-access project website.In diverse and innovative ways, the project seeks both to infuse academia with social justice, as well as creative outlets and social justice endeavours with high quality information and education. This will both strengthen and diversify existing and form also new networks and take a big and promising step towards sustained social betterment and justice.