Dr Laura Lammasniemi, Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship
Narratives of Sexual Consent in Criminal Courts, 1870-1950
Dr Laura Lammasniemi from the School of Law has been awarded Leverhulme Fellowship for a project entitled “Narratives of sexual consent in criminal courts, 1870-1950”.
Dr Lammasniemi will spend the year-long Fellowship writing a book on the findings of the project. The project explores how sexual consent was understood in every-day criminal trials before the legal definition of consent, and asks what that legal history can tell us about the very nature of this contested concept.
The Fellowship is based on archival research on courtroom narratives on consent in areas of rape, prostitution and trafficking, and sexual activity with girls under the age of consent. Through historical analysis, the project will bring crucial insights on contemporary legal debates on sexual consent at a time when conviction rates are at an all-time low.
As part of the Fellowship, she is also interested in performative aspects of determining consent, and had planned to stage performative pieces that drew from past criminal cases. Due to COVID related restrictions, instead of performance pieces, she will create a podcast / series of short podcast which include dramatized extracts from courtroom transcripts of sexual offences trials ranging from rape to trafficking and prostitution related offences from the 19th and 20th century, and exploration of the complex and unusual legal history of sexual consent in Britain.
Dr Laura Lammasniemi.
You can listen Laura’s earlier Podcast with Talking Research on the history of age of consent laws and reforms where she talks about the inspiration for the project in Spotify or Google Podcasts.