Culture and Structure in Sexual Violence Prevention: Imagining New Pathways toward Gender Liberation

• In Event: International and State Power in Gender and Sexual Violence Prevention in the Postsocialist "East"

Abstract

Sexual violence (SV) is a global phenomenon rooted at the intersection of complex psychological traits of perpetrators and a range of cultural and structural factors. Despite this multidimensional complexity, sexual violence prevention is often considered at the individual level, ignoring the importance of structural and cultural factors. However, as long as the sexual violence prevention (SVP) field remains focused on individual responsibility grounded in medical pathologies, it will remain a “relatively impoverished area within the field of violence against women” (Fontes & McCloskey, 2011, p. 163). Instead, multi-faceted sexual violence prevention approaches are needed that respond to the interconnectedness of interpersonal and structural violence as root causes of SV and ground responses in cultural and historical contexts, relevant to local conditions, but in conversation with global, evidence-based approaches (Fontes & McCloskey, 2011; Todorova, 2023).

In order to contribute to the global discussion on SVP efforts, this paper examines sexual violence prevention in Croatia, especially within the higher education context. The paper first looks at sexual violence as a global phenomenon and highlights SV prevalence, root causes, and the role of higher education in its prevention. Then, leaning on legal and institutional sexual prevention policy analysis in postsocialist Croatia, the paper addresses sexual violence prevention efforts in Croatia within vertical (local) and horizontal (supranational and global) power flows. Lastly, the paper offers new imaginaries for effective and liberatory approaches to sexual violence prevention that are more attentive to marginalized experiences, local and global systems of power and local women’s voices.

Author

• Nana Gulic, U of Toronto (Canada)