Dr Natasha Mulvihill
PhD, MSc, MA, PGCE, BSc(Hons)
Expertise
See https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/natasha-mulvihill
Current positions
Associate Professor in Criminology
School for Policy Studies
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
At the moment, I am working on three areas:
1. Professional and powerful perpetrators of sexual violence and abuse, and institutional harm:
- The relationship between authority and coercion and specifically how 'high status/high public trust' professionals perpetrate sexual violence and abuse, and how professional tribunals and panels respond. See this paper on doctor abuse, as an example.
- In November 2022, I was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant to further this work on professional perpetrators. This project runs from Autumn 2023 to Autumn 2028. Updates will follow here: Powerful Perpetrators – ERC/UKRI project led by Dr Natasha Mulvihill, University of Bristol, UK.
- Currently writing up research with Dr Fay Sweeting (Bournemouth) on police perpetrated domestic and sexual abuse (outputs 2024).
2. Sex industry
- Co-author of 2019 Home Office commissioned report on prostitution and sex work and recent book (2022).
- Academic adviser to the National Police Chiefs Council Sex Work Working Group since 2019.
- Teach a final year undergraduate Criminology unit looking at the sex industry called 'Sex, Power and Consumption'.
3. Intersections of sexual violence and harm with popular culture, technology or faith:
- Currently writing up individual research into non-consensual 'rough sex' (outputs 2024).
- Through 2021 and into 2022, I worked on an Oak Foundation funded team project looking at faith and coercive control.
- Co-investigator on ESRC-funded work (2015-2018) on justice responses to GBV, including religious arbitration for abuse within marriage.
- Contributed to volumes on (i) coercive control and (ii) sex work in popular song.
- Working with Dr Katie Winkle (Uppsala) on robots, coercive control, domestic and sexual and abuse. See e.g. our paper accepted for ACM HRI 2024.
- Currently developing work with Dr Jo Large (Bristol) on online dating harms and social media (outputs 2024)
- Write a blog (very infrequently): Criminology Tales
Memberships:
- Associate Fellow of the Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters Group (SHaME) at Birkbeck University.
- Member of the Secrecy, Power & Ignorance research Network (SPIN), a collaboration of scholars focused on the power and politics of secrecy and ignorance.
- Member of the European Society of Criminology.
- Member of the European Consortium for Political Research.
I secured my first lectureship here at Bristol in 2017, to work on the new BSc Criminology which started that Autumn. Prior to coming into academia, I worked in a number of banking roles in London and Bristol, trained as a secondary English teacher and worked for 5 years as a policy adviser. My undergraduate degree was in Politics but I became interested in Criminology, gender and power while doing volunteer/paid work teaching adult literacy at the probation service and with women exiting the sex industry. I studied a Masters in Criminology and Social Policy part-time, while working, and then applied for an ESRC 1+3 PhD studentship.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
ERC Starting Grant: Sex, power and professionals: the nature, extent and administrative justice responses to sexual misconduct and abuse perpetrated by professionals
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/11/2023 to 31/10/2028
GW4 R WELL (Researcher Wellbeing Evidence and Learning Lab)
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
Funded by the GW4 Alliance, GW4 R WELL aims to build a network of academic and professional service staff across GW4, to share multi-disciplinary experience, knowledge, research, policy and good…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
02/10/2023 to 04/01/2024
'Rough Sex'
Principal Investigator
Description
This research project explores experiences of non-consensual 'rough sex'. This refers to aggressive, violent and/or humiliating behaviours which occur during intimate interactions and which are unprompted, unexpected and unwanted.…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/03/2022 to 31/12/2024
Unrestricted programme support on Understanding and Responding to Coercive Control
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
The project addresses a series of important issues in tackling domestic violence and abuse that have not previously been dealt with to any extent, relating specifically to emerging forms of…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/10/2020 to 30/09/2022
A Collaborative Approach to Raising Awareness About the Link Between Domestic Violence and Abuse and Animals Abuse
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
10/08/2020 to 27/11/2020
Thesis supervisions
Publications
Selected publications
21/07/2022UK victim-survivor experiences of intimate partner spiritual abuse and religious coercive control and implications for practice
Criminology and Criminal Justice
Professional authority and sexual coercion
Social Science and Medicine
Experiences of the Sex Industry
Experiences of the Sex Industry
Recent publications
04/01/2024Anticipating the Use of Robots in Domestic Abuse
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
Undergraduate research findings on rough sex, consent and sexual scripts
What is justice?
Violence against Women
Seaside Ports, Coastal Cities and Tropical Islands
Coastal Environments in Popular Song