Toolkit for Survivor-Centred Research
iMPACTS is proud to announce the launch of a new toolkit, titled Survivor-Centred Research: Guidelines, Principles, and Resources. The toolkit, written and compiled by Dr. Carrie Rentschler, Benjamin Nothwehr, Ayeshi Vemuri, Arianne Kent, Nina Morena, and Emma Blackett, presents a set of guidelines for researching the institutional and personal harms caused by sexual violence.
Taking survivor-centred approach to research means that all those who are engaged in addressing sexual violence prioritize the rights, needs, and wishes of the survivor. This approach aims to create a supportive environment in which survivor’s rights are respected and in which they are treated with dignity, respect, autonomy and self- determination. It also seeks to minimize the possibility of re-traumatization.
The authorship team consists of students and a professor who research how activists, students, teachers, and university staff address sexual violence and rape culture on university campuses. They work in Humanities and Social Science fields of research, and draw on a range of interdisciplinary research tools and texts to conduct our research. They began developing this toolkit as a way for their team to think through and reflect on the ethics and practices of engaging in survivor-centred research. It is with great pleasure that we now share this toolkit to encourage further conversations about what it means to do survivor-centred research and to do it well.
Click here to access the toolkit. Additional resources for researchers conducting studies on sexual violence and gender-based violence, including other toolkits, guides, and reports, are available here.
