The immobilities of gender-based violence in the Covid-19 pandemic

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One particularly concerning consequence of the Covid-19 crisis is the reported surge in domesticabuse. This transdisciplinary project seeks to produce understandings of domestic violence inrelation to gender-based violence (GBV) and immobilities in order to produce insights that can beconverted to policy. It does so through the creation and analysis of personal stories detailingexperiences of GBV across the UK at different stages in the Covid-19 crisis. The Covid-19 lockdownhas focused attention on domestic violence and its relationship to constrained mobilities.Understanding domestic abuse within the frame of GBV allows us to look across the multiple sitesof felt violence that have been reconfigured. It is critical that we understand and deliberate GBV inthese redefined spaces in order to invigorate policy responses to domestic abuse and other GBVwithin the current crisis and beyond. This research does so through the analysis of told and untoldstories of GBV in relation to the complex interdependencies of immobilities. The projectinvestigates how im/mobilities precipitate gendered violence, both felt and experienced and howembodied experiences become situated in mobile spaces - inside, outside and online - in thecontext of the Covid-19 pandemic. The project combines analysis of existing stories (in the publicdomain already) with directed original life writing, supported in creative writing cafes, to develop aform of autoethnography that values narrative accounts of experiences of GBV at different stagesof the pandemic and reveals inequalities. These stories will be valued as part of the criticalresearch through academic outputs as well underpinning online conversations with policymakersand professionals with a view to producing tangible policy recommendations.