Affective listening, digital activism and law reform addressing violence against women

Cassandra Sharp and Sarah Ailwood

Chapter 24 in Research Handbook on Gender, Violence and Law, 2026, pp 393-410 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The 2020s in Australia are witnessing the emergence of highly affective narratives of victim-survivors of violence across social media and in law reform contexts. Our analysis of an Australian institutional law reform process (the Australian Human Rights Commission National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces) and an Australian-based social media campaign (#March4Justice) reveals the deeply affective forms of legal subjectivity that are embedded in legal storytelling of violence and exposes an urgency in developing innovative approaches to listening that can adequately and effectively respond to them. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's theory of listening with a feminist ear, we highlight the centrality of emotion and affect in women's legal storytelling of violence, arguing that women's affective storytelling is a form of legality in its own right, and call for law reform institutions to implement affective modes of listening to respond to women's justice interests.

Keywords: Legal storytelling; Affective listening; Social media; Violence against women; Law reform; Digital activism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035319398
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