Pragna Patel on Survival, Resilience, and Justice for Women

The inaugural event of the Wadham Law & Justice Research Hub, this multidisciplinary conference at the end of April showcased research and insights at the nexus of violence against women, the law and everyday life, with a particular focus on the experiences of marginalised survivors in a range of jurisdictions. The conference contributed to discussions in feminist legal theory and feminist geolegality that emphasise the intimate and everyday workings and impact of the law through empirical cases.

In the context of domestic violence, we are concerned with how women survivors experience, navigate, negotiate and/or resist institutional and cultural norms as well as legal rights, services, and provisions. In contexts of inadequate or partial legal provisions, we wish to examine the extra-legal, non-state, and vernacular practices that shape the law and access to it. The conference therefore spoke to wider questions of legal pluralism and how survivors of domestic violence work/struggle to create alternative spaces of justice and/or refuge, that enable them to cope, if not thrive.

The conference was generously funded by The British Academy.

Pragna Patel spoke on themes of survival, resilience, and justice for women. Pragna is the former director and founding member of Southall Black Sisters’ advocacy and campaigning centre and Women Against Fundamentalism (She worked as a co-ordinator/caseworker and director for Southall Black Sisters (SBS) from 1982 to Jan 2022 with a break in 1993 when she left to train and practice as a solicitor.) For 40 years, she was at the helm of SBS and has been centrally involved in some of SBS’ most important cases and campaigns involving domestic violence, immigration and religious fundamentalism. She is also a member of Feminist Dissent and has written extensively on race, gender and religion.

Her keynote is available to watch above or on YouTube.

Another highlight from the conference was a panel on 'Policy and partnerships' featuring Nichole Jacobs, UK Domestic Abuse Commissioner. Appointed in 2019, Ms Jacobs was previously Chief Executive Officer of the charity Standing Together Against Domestic Violence and has more than 2 decades of experience working to tackle domestic abuse. As set out in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner is an independent voice that champions the voices of victims and survivors, engaging those with lived experience to help shape government policy and make recommendations on what more can be done to tackle domestic abuse.