How did people with learning disabilities live before the asylum? Simon Jarrett interrogates the assumption that this community has always been hidden from mainstream society.
The border is one of the key technologies of settler-colonial necropolitical power. Constanza Bergo reflects on the violence of the Australian coastal border-line.
How can early modern histories of sexual violence in war challenge persistent ideas that such crimes are inevitable and justice out of reach? Tom Hamilton explores
What is the difference between poverty and scarcity? Julia McClure explores how different communities and societies mitigated the risks of resource scarcity before capitalism created poverty.
What did seventeenth century communities do when one of their number reported experiencing suicidal thoughts? Imogen Knox discusses the ways in which early modern people sought to help and care for their family members and neighbours in…
How did women escape domestic abuse in late medieval London? Charlotte Berry explores how women navigated the social and economic barriers to leaving a violent marriage to find a safe place to live in a medieval city.
When does the call for ‘speaking out’ against sexual violence begin to silence victim-survivors? Through reflecting on the #MeToo moment, Allison McKibban argues mainstream Western movements against sexual violence are often insidiously…
How can we understand the true forces behind Russia’s expansionist aspirations today? Hubertus Jahn traces the long ideological roots of Putin's propaganda.
What can the arrival of an anonymous letter to a local police station tell us about the administration of justice in nineteenth-century Scotland? Hannah Telling discusses the case surrounding the discovery of a woman's body in 1853, and…
Is the family a place of safety or a trap? Ruth Beecher explores the institution of the family and the (lack of) recognition of child sexual abuse within it.
As part of our '(Un)Silenced' series, George Severs argues that the history of male victims of rape and sexual violence should make us all alert to the ways in which gender norms silence male experiences of abuse, and prompt us to hear male…
Can medical institutions participate in colonial violence? Allison McKibban argues the involuntary sterilization of tens of thousands of Native American women in the 1970s must be rehistoricised as part of the U.S. government’s broader…
How does society approach the sexual desires of those with disabilities? Stephanie Wright explores the history of a lack of acknowledgement of vulnerable people's sexual autonomy , which can result in an increased possibility of harm.
This is the introduction for the (Un)Silenced: Institutional Sexual Violence feature, which explores how sexual violence relates to various societal institutions. The series provides a historical understanding of the ways in which sexual…
Have you ever wondered what happens to collective trauma as eyewitness memory fades? For descendants of eyewitnesses, do results of violence dissipate, vanish, or evaporate? Gwyn McClelland explores the evidence from Nagasaki.
As the global ecological crisis deepens and spreads through virus, fire and flood, Elly Robson introduces a new HWO series on The Political Environment. How have politics shaped the way we identify ecological problems and solutions, and how…
How does state violence extend internationally? While historians often discuss global resistance to national dictatorships, Pablo Bradbury considers the international terrain of Argentine state terror.
How can we understand women's role in political violence and terrorism? James Crossland discusses the role of Russian women in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.
Long-unpublished photographs taken by journalist Alan Winnington in South Korea are now providing crucial evidence for the 1950 Daejeon Massacre. David Miller explores
Complicated and often conflicted responses to sex workers who become victims of violence is by no means new, and is not limited to police and the courts. If we look at evidence from earlier centuries it is clear that both social and legal…
Andrew Whitehead writes on the long and troubled history of the Indian relationship with Kashmir and its future directions, amidst the current violence and legal and political changes.
Delving into Sri Lanka's colonial past, Shamara Wettimuny shows how the 'Easter attacks', or recent anti-Muslim violence has its roots in the ethno-nationalistic paradigm of the island.
For the first fifty years of Irish independence, domestic violence was shrouded in secrecy and denial. Cara Diver explores how feminist reformers shattered the illusion that the home was always a site of safety for women and their…
During the Second World War, some 34,000 women were used as prostitutes in Nazi-run brothels across occupied Europe. Their forgotten experience provides the inspiration for Mary Chamberlain's new novel The Hidden.
