Institutional Apathies: A Transnational Ethnographic Analysis of Responses to Sexual Assault

• In Event: Victimization and Perceptions of Crime and Justice

Abstract

In many countries around the world, sexual assault is a social and cultural epidemic. Two of these countries, the U.S. and Ireland, have vastly different historical experiences leading to similar cultural reality: exorbitantly high rates of sexual violence, chronic underreporting, and low conviction rates for sexual assault cases. Both causes of sexual assault and outcomes of the legal system are tied closely to institutional relationships, which represent microcosms of larger cultural attitudes. This study examines such dynamics by utilizing three years of ethnographic field research, including 60 interviews with RCC advocates and stakeholders in Ireland and the United States. Transnational comparisons reveal distinct systemic underpinnings in the two countries, relating to the similar cultural and judicial manifestations: specialized court procedures, levels of silence, and the handling of sexualities at large.

Author

• Elizabeth Whalley, University of Colorado Boulder