Dr Aviah Day

Overview

Biography

My research is informed by my work and activism of domestic violence meaning that my work integrates theory and practice with the express goal of furthering social justice. This maps across my academic, teaching and activist commitments.

Before academic life I held a number of front-line domestic violence service roles, including working as an Independent Domestic and Sexual Violence Advocate, Refuge Worker and National Domestic Violence Helpline Worker. I am also a member of Sisters Uncut – a national direct-action collective fighting cuts to domestic violence services and state violence, as well as the London Renters Union – a members led tenants union.

Research

Research overview

My research takes the innovative approach of applying intersectionality to domestic violence policy, in particular examining how survivors from a range of backgrounds experience partnerships between domestic violence services and the criminal justice system. The intersections of ‘race’, disability, migration status, class and gender are analysed, revealing that some survivors are made more vulnerable to criminalisation and immigration enforcement through such partnerships. Undertaking a critical analysis of ‘carceral feminism’ my work proposes prison abolition and community-based, decolonial alternatives to the criminal justice system such as transformative justice and community accountability.

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:: 2

Current doctoral researchers

DOROTA JENKINS

Nature of supervision:
Joint Principal Supervisor, Aug 2020 onwards

Title of thesis:
Barriers to reporting domestic violence and the community's (un)willingness to cooperate with the police within the Polish community in London
SHANNON SAHNI

Nature of supervision:
Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2021 onwards

Title of thesis:
Exploring Womens Victimisation and Agency in Drug Dependency Through a Spatial Lens

Description:
This thesis challenges existing understandings of women who use drugs as either helpless victims or as empowered agents. Drawing on feminist scholarship, frameworks of intersectionality and spatiality, and the voices of women who use or have used drugs themselves, this project explores experiences of both agency and victimisation in the context of drug dependency.

Teaching

Teaching modules

Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice (Level 5) (LACN020H5)
Intersectionality and Criminal Justice (LACN026S7)
Sociology of Crime (LALA180S4)

Publications

Article

Day, Aviah and Gill, A. (2020) An intersectional approach to improving the efficacy of partnerships between women’s organisations and the criminal justice system in relation to domestic violence. British Journal of Criminology 60 (4), pp. 830-850. ISSN 0007-0955.

Book Section

Ackhurst, Molly and Brazzell, M. and Day, Aviah and Tomlinson, Kamilah and Rodrigues Fowler, Y. (2022) Creative and transformative approaches to justice. In: Horvath, M.A.H. and Brown, J.M. (eds.) Rape: Challenging Contemporary Thinking – 10 Years On. London: Routledge. pp. 268-282. ISBN 9780367757410.
Gill, A.K. and Day, Aviah (2020) Moral panic in the media: scapegoating South Asian men in cases of sexual exploitation and grooming. In: Ramon, S. and Lloyd, M. and Penhale, B. (eds.) Gendered Domestic Violence and Abuse in Popular Culture. Emerald. ISBN 9781838677824.
Day, Aviah and Jenner, A. and Weir, R. (2018) Domestic abuse: predicting, assessing and responding to risk in the Criminal Justice System and beyond. In: Milne, E. and Brennen, K. and South, N. and Turton, J. (eds.) Women and the Criminal Justice System: Failing Victims and Offenders?. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 67-94. ISBN 9783319767734.