Beyond ‘Revenge Porn’: The Continuum of Image-Based Sexual Abuse

In the last few years, many countries have introduced laws combating the phenomenon colloquially known as ‘revenge porn’. While new laws criminalising this practice represent a positive step forwards, the legislative response has been piecemeal and typically focuses only on the practices of vengeful ex-partners. Drawing on Liz Kelly’s (Surviving sexual violence. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1988) pioneering work, we suggest that ‘revenge porn’ should be understood as just one form of a range of gendered, sexualised forms of abuse which have common characteristics, forming what we are conceptualising as the ‘continuum of image-based sexual abuse’. Further, we argue that image-based sexual abuse is on a continuum with other forms of sexual violence. We suggest that this twin approach may enable a more comprehensive legislative and policy response that, in turn, will better reflect the harms to victim-survivors and lead to more appropriate and effective educative and preventative strategies.     

Class,caste and gender in collective action: Agricultural labour unions in two Indian villages

This study asks why class, caste and gender ties operated differently in the mobilisation of agricultural labourers from two villages with a regional union movement. In both villages, mobilisation involved coalition building ‐ either across class or caste boundaries. The type of coalition assembled seems to depend on past political strategies that have been in use by labourers at least since the late 1940s. The contribution of social networks as conditioned by the organisation of the male and female workforces is also investigated. Such variables are found to be more ‘explanatory’ of participation in collective struggles with the labour union than abstract class categories or structural change in the economy.