The last decade has been a period of renewed attention to, and action on, sexual violence on post secondary campuses. Amidst the new policies, programs and responses, we argue that missing from these changes has been critical reflection, research and understanding the problem complexly. In particular, there is a focus in post secondary institutions (PSI) on being “survivor centred” in their responses but very little empirical grounding for what survivors need or want in terms of responses. This is not an easy task as survivors of sexual violence have diverse needs that shift over time and place. This project aims to get a better understanding of the complex needs of PSI survivors and to test a new method for getting at the collective needs of survivors and for empowering survivors to contribute to responses. Using a conceptual framework that understands justice to be multifaceted our main research question is: What varied justice needs do those harmed by sexual violence have, especially in relation to responses on the part of students’ post-secondary institutions? This research project involves two methods of data collection. The first phase involves in-depth, semi-structed interviews with MacEwan students who have experienced some form of sexual violence. While it is important to provide survivors the space to speak to their needs as individuals, justice is a collective, social problem. In order to get at the sociality of justice the second phase of data collection will consist of several small interactive workshops.

We are looking to hire a research assistant to assist in the development of our recruitment materials. The population we are sampling from is often considered a “hard to reach” one. While we do not necessarily agree we do acknowledge the heightened need for truly informed consent for this group. In order to provide more information than is typical we will create standard recruitment posters to solicit participants but with the addition of an information/screening element. The poster will contain a QR code that will link potential participants to a short video of the researchers. In this video we will describe the project in more detail, emphasizing that this research and not a support resource. We will discuss the risks and benefits of participating and link to support resources. We hope this mechanism provides potential participants with an opportunity to assess their readiness to engage in this type of reflection in relation to the violence they have experienced, which will screen out those who may be currently in crisis and be less suited to take part in a research project about sexual violence.

The RA for this portion of the project will be a design student that will design the poster and produce the video.

I will be providing the student with some training in the content area. This will be necessary component to the design work. I will also provide mentorship around the research process and how design is implemented within academic research.