I am a lecturer in International Relations in the Department of Politics at the University of York. My research focuses primarily on sexual and gender-based violence in military and conflict spaces. As such, not all of my work is focused specifically on military spouses; however, I think that looking across what feminists such as Cockburn have referred to as the “continuum of violence” across war and peace, public and private, provides a useful perspective through which to make sense of the multiple ways in which gendered militarism functions.
My previous research projects have focused on intimate partner violence perpetrated by men serving in the British Military against their civilian wives, and on gender-based violence in (post)conflict in the African Great Lakes region (together with Professor Maria Stern [University of Gothenburg], Professor Maria Eriksson Baaz [Uppsala University], and Dr Chris Dolan [Makerere University]). In addition, I have also carried out smaller pieces of work analysing the representations of domestic labour in autobiographical accounts written by British military wives; and the (in)visibility of intimate partner violence in the British Government’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI).
At the moment I am PI on an ESRC New Investigator-funded project focused on the memorialisation of sexual violence across war and peace in the contemporary USA. The project begins from the assumption that memorialisation is never politically neutral, and analyses its role in feminist politics. It focuses in particular on six memorial projects located across the USA: three dedicated to peacetime sexual violence within the US, and three to the 'comfort women' of the Asia-Pacific War.
In addition, I am also developing a piece of research that seeks to understand the experiences of women who experience sexual violence while serving in the British military.
My broader research interests include gender-based violence; militarism and militarisation; memorialisation; military families; masculinities and vulnerability; the UN’s Women, Peace and Security Agenda; and feminist methodologies in the study of International Relations.
Email: harriet.gray@york.ac.uk
Twitter: @DrHarrietGray
Research Websites: