Staff Spotlight - Dr Laura Bower | University of Portsmouth

Earlier this month, we spoke to Dr Laura Bower, Lecturer in Criminology and Victimology, about her work on violence against women, trauma-informed teaching, and creative research methods.

We sent Daisy Taylor, Apprentice Administrative Assistant, to find out more.

What first inspired you to pursue criminology and victimology?

I kind of fell into criminology. When I was 18, my psychology lecturer took us to a criminology roadshow, where I got to meet Professor David Wilson, who, for anyone that doesn't know, is probably the most famous criminologist [in the media]; he's a former prison governor as well, and a professor in his own right, but he specialises in serial killers. I got to meet him when I was 18, I was sitting watching these 4 criminology presentations, and I just loved it. It was a bit of history, a bit of people, a bit of society, but it wasn't just the science-y technical stuff that psychology was. And I really liked that. For such a niche subject, this is everything I wanted. It also felt like a strong career path. I always knew I wanted to work with victims over offenders. I think you're either one of the two camps. You look at what causes crime, or you look at the effects. And I was always far more interested in the effects. So, victims were the natural path.

A core focus of your work is violence against women, particularly considering identity, ethnicity, gender, and disability. Why is it important to analyse violence through these lenses?

I think that it’s where the world is going, and I think that it’s the right direction. Gone are the days when we only care about what happens to white women or white men. Violence is something that affects people, not just as violence, but it affects you as part of your identity. I think people make a lot of assumptions about certain populations, and the more inclusive we can be, the better. I think we’ve come a long way, and if you’re not on that train, you need to get on.

What challenges do you encounter when researching such sensitive and emotionally complex topics?

It's every day you get a disclosure from a student, and I am so privileged to be in that position. You're telling me something that you might not have told another person, something horrible that’s happened to you. But that takes emotional weight. It does every time. On my desk, I have this jar of keys. I got [the idea] from a midwife on TikTok, where, if she had a baby that passed away, she would try to honour them. So, if someone ever discloses something to me, I let them pick one, and that really helps. I call it a timepiece. It's also really hard to always be the angry feminist at times. My dissertation meetings last much longer than usual because one of my dissertation students is looking at incest. You're always leading the self-care sessions because you have to learn on the job just how to do it. I joke, I watch so much reality TV because I don't want to come home and watch an Andrew Tate documentary. Or the Louis Theroux manosphere documentary. It just makes you angry. I'd rather come home and watch Married at First Sight. If I had a pound for every person who says, “Oh, what do you think of the Amber Heard Johnny Depp trial?” And I think, I've got a paper coming out about this, but I don't watch this in my free time. My free time is bubbly and sweet. But the biggest challenge is it's like taking home your work. You can never switch off.

Your work explores the #tradwife movement through a black feminist lens. What initially led you to examine this topic?

It’s white-centric. It’s full of white women, and that’s the norm. I also think people have a weird fascination with women of colour tradwives. A battle I’ve had reviewing other people’s work and my own is, who do we call a tradwife? It’s a paradox to be a tradwife influencer, personifying these stereotypes, yet running a business. Do we call someone who claims the label a tradwife, or do we call someone who is similar but doesn’t like the label themselves? Nara Smith, for example, hates the label tradwife. The feminist in me doesn’t want to force a label on a woman that she hasn’t claimed, but at the same time, considering women like Hannah Neilman, Ballerina Farm, you’re getting very close, it’s about as close as you can get, so it’s a really difficult one. To get back to the question, everyone approaches the tradwife movement from just gender, and gender doesn’t exist in isolation. Nobody is just a gender. We talk a lot as well about how race is a really important part of white supremacy, which the tradwife movement is linked to. What the tradwife movement is suggesting is that we should almost go back to the 1950’s, where women did the bulk of domestic labour. I hate to break it to you, but women weren’t doing the bulk of domestic labour. At least white women weren’t, they were hiring maids who were of colour. People seem to forget about this and romanticise the past. I didn’t really see anyone in that space, so that’s why I wanted to look.

You've written about the importance of trigger warnings, especially in trauma-affected spaces. What misconceptions do you think people have about trigger warnings?

I knew the moment I started doing trigger warnings, I could see it in their faces, oh, this is controversial. What I am quite passionate about is looking at it from a critical feminist disability standpoint, because to be really honest, I wrote that paper because I was reading about a guy called Greg Lukianoff, and he was complaining about some US students at Rutgers University asking for trigger warnings on The Great Gatsby and Mrs Dalloway. Mrs Dalloway is about a suicide, and The Great Gatsby has domestic violence and gang violence. Wuthering Heights, we teach that at GCSE level. To Kill a Mockingbird. I get why we're trying to get people to be uncomfortable in education. They’re complaining about the students that trigger warnings aren't for. Now my natural comeback is, you don't want trigger warnings, that’s fine, but you need to post your lectures in advance, the full lectures so students can get an idea [of what's to come]. Making sure you allow students to leave the classroom. There’s an example of a student at another University, one of the examples talked about was a student that they went to school with who had taken their own life. They didn’t feel like they could leave, and it wasn’t in any of the pre-read material. They weren’t warned. This is why trigger warnings exist. You think it’s for everybody, but it’s not. It’s for the few students where it really matters.

How do you approach teaching material that can sometimes be emotionally heavy for students?

For me, it’s choice. If I’m setting a reading in theory that gives an example that doesn’t need to be as sensitive as it is, I’ll still set them the required reading that I think is best, but I’ll put a note on it saying that this reading has discussions of child sex offending, you don’t need to know this to engage with the topic. You can skip to pages X to X, or you can read this instead. That’s probably the best approach to inclusion, and [students] can always come back to it if they want to. Another thing is recording. I think if you have sensitive content, it should be recorded. Students can then dip in and out, and that’s something that really matters to me.

Does teaching students influence your research?

I would say so. The first paper I wrote was about teaching students specifically. I think students make you think about things in a different way. The reason I’ve had my pronouns in my e-mail signature since 2020 is because a student called me out on it. Students challenge you in a way that sometimes I don’t think academia does, they get you to think about things and defend them. Particularly, the sense of defending my theoretical position. Why is this so complicated? Why do we use this language? Why does language matter? I always tell my students, you can’t just write an essay; you have to have a viewpoint.

Your biography mentions that you're a passionate feminist artist and author. How does your creativity fit into your academic life?

The truth is, I didn’t want to write that. I’m bad at saying I’m an author, even though I have a published short story, and I produce artwork. Imposter syndrome comes into effect. Creativity, I just think people think you’re bonkers, but they love it. I’ve been massively involved with Festival of Crime, designing things research-wise. People keep coming into my office and saying, is this a charity shop? Because I have a clothes rail for the clothes that I’m embroidering at the moment. I love it when people can interact with research, touch it, feel it, even smell it. That’s the point of the sensory exhibit. We want people to understand these worlds. An example is Louis Theroux’s ‘Inside the Manosphere’ documentary, it didn’t go far enough; it barely spoke on violence against women. They don’t talk about the real dark side of the manosphere. People always seem to talk about this, but they’re not quite getting the impact. We want people to see the impact.

You have strong interests in arts-based research methods. What draws you to arts-based approaches over more traditional methods?

I hated art when I was in school, couldn’t stand it. Not in the traditional sense. I don’t like drawing, I don’t like painting. I’ve always done embroidery, I have a Gold Arts Award in it. I’ve always liked making things. My favourite thing about doing arts-based research is when you get someone who doesn’t want to be there, and they come up with this amazing idea, or we create something, and the audience just goes - wow. When you stare at something that was created by someone who has experienced trauma, it unsettles you. It’s tangible, it reminds you that this is terrible.

Looking ahead, what emerging issues or unanswered questions are you most excitied to explore?

I’m going to be doing some collaboration with Stop Domestic Abuse, it’s a regional charity with around 18 refuges around Hampshire, and I’ll be doing that with a former Portsmouth alumnus- she’s amazing. She did her master's at Portsmouth and is now the Portsmouth refuge manager. We’re looking to create artwork with people with lived experiences of domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is slightly different to sexual violence in the sense that your identity really shifts, there’s more of a before and after. We’re also hoping to create a cookbook to help with that impact factor. Also, after every research session, we’ll be doing a self-care session. It’s kind of my way to give back. We’ll be teaching people how to make my favourite cookie recipe, fair-style lemonade, and their kids will be welcome to participate. I’m hoping that this will push the boundaries of arts-based research.

If resources were unlimited, what dream research project would you pursue?

I'd love to do a live art exhibition. Ethically, there would have to be a conversation because I always want to protect my participants, but yes, a live art, sensory exhibit would be so cool. I’m hoping we can pull this off with the tradwives exhibition.