UWTSD academic co-edits major new international publication on sexual violence in medicine and psychiatry

A new interdisciplinary book examining how medicine, psychiatry and wider healthcare systems have responded to sexual violence throughout history has been co-edited by a researcher at University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

Sexual Violence in Medicine and Psychiatry: Addressing Harms Through Interdisciplinarity has been co-edited by Dr Rhian Elinor Keyse alongside Dr Adeline Moussion Esteve of Birkbeck, University of London, and Dr Emma Yapp of the University of Bristol.

Published by Springer Nature as part of the Genders and Sexualities in History series, the collection brings together international scholarship exploring how medical and psychiatric knowledge, practitioners and institutions have responded to sexual violence across different historical and contemporary contexts.

The book examines how healthcare and psychiatric systems have at times reinforced discrimination, marginalisation and surveillance, while also shaping legal and social understandings of sexual violence. Drawing on case studies from countries including the UK, Australia, Kenya and Argentina, the publication is described as the first cohesive edited collection to unite interdisciplinary scholarship on this topic. The book contains a chapter authored by Dr Keyse, based on extensive archival work in Kenya, in which she historicises barriers to care faced by Kenyan survivors of sexual violence, arguing that the under-resourcing and underfunding of services can be traced to colonial racial logics.

Dr Keyse, a Lecturer in Global Historical Studies at UWTSD, said:

“This collection brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to examine how medical and psychiatric responses to sexual violence have developed over time, and how those histories continue to shape experiences and systems today.

We hope the book will encourage meaningful interdisciplinary conversations among academics, policymakers and practitioners, while also contributing to wider discussions around justice, care and institutional responsibility.”

The collection has already attracted strong academic praise. Carine Mardorossian, Professor of English and Global Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Buffalo, USA, commented:

“The meticulously researched essays in this volume examine the ways in which medical and psychiatric knowledge has been both engaged with and challenged by its intersection with sexual violence. The authors expose the gendered, racializing and ableist cultural responses to sexual violence while embodying an impressive range of cultural and interdisciplinary expertise that will appeal to scholars from both the humanities and the social sciences.”

The collection is intended to support academics, policymakers and practitioners working across healthcare, psychiatry, psychology and related fields, helping to deepen understanding of how responses to sexual violence have evolved and where further change is needed.

Further information about the book is available via Springer Nature Link.

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