Cluster overview

The violence, and social justice cluster is home to a vibrant and multi-disciplinary group of scholars who ask questions across the fields of sociology, criminology, social policy, political science, history, cultural and media studies. Our research covers themes that tap onto enduring problems facing pursuits of social justice including borders and migration, racialised discrimination, criminalisation, gendered violence, homicide, policing, reconciliation, and the problems of prisons and punishment. Our work encompasses methodological expertise in, trauma-informed qualitative research, ethnographic, arts-based, historical and comparative research, advanced quantitative skills, generational analysis, discourse analysis and other approaches that engage vulnerable populations and complex state institutions.

Our members are critically engaged and attuned to activist, intersectional and international perspectives across the Global North and South. We are regularly called upon to advise policymakers, state, and third-sector institutions, as well as practitioner groups. The cluster is driven by an alertness to an upsurge in structural inequalities associated with colonialism and neoliberal governance and their long-term effects. Through our research and civic engagement, we are committed to improving outcomes for marginalised populations internationally, nationally, and locally.

Our group marries leading scholars, with early-career and post-graduate researchers. We seek to provide sensitive, reflexive, practical and intellectual support to our members across the emotionally demanding research conducted within our cluster. We meet regularly to discuss work-in-progress papers and funding applications, research challenges, collaborative events, and to promote public engagement activities.