Aisling is Professor of Gender Studies in UCD School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice. She previously worked on international policy making with organisations such as UN Women headquarters in New York and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. She was named by A- Political as one of the world's 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy 2021.
Her research on conflict-related violence against women (CRVAW) advances visibility of broad ranging forms of harm that women may experience as a result of armed conflict, including but beyond armed group collective sexual violence. Her book, Conflict-Related Violence Against Women: Transforming Transition and related articles Beyond Strategic Rape and Re-shaping Political Settlements draw from research in Liberia, Northern Ireland and Timor-Leste. They are among the first to empirically evidence the relationship between pre, during and post-conflict gendered violence, while examining the role that justice processes have in securing recognition and accountability for how gendered harms occur.
Aisling says: “Doing research on issues like violence against women is challenging, as well as rewarding. Creating better understanding and response to women’s experience of conflict- related harm is vital, so that our societies and institutions better recognise and make change to the constancy of violence in women’s lives. There are many challenges in research on these issues – such as ensuring that research is conducted ethically and safely for everyone involved, that support services are available for women as part of the research process and that in situations where I am an ‘outsider’, I am conducting research in ways that are led as much as possible by those the research aims to serve.”
Her recent article Resurfacing Gender: A Typology of Conflict-Related Violence Against Women for the Northern Ireland Troubles is the first to compile the range of conflict-related gendered violence documented to date in the context of the Northern Ireland Troubles. By garnering acknowledgment of the varied ways that women experience armed conflict, she is evidencing the need for better responses - whether through formal justice processes or service response to women and girls during and after conflict.
Creating better understanding and response to women’s experience of conflict-
related harm is vital, so that our societies and institutions better recognise and make change to the constancy of violence in women’s lives.
Before moving into academia, Aisling worked with the United Nations (UN) and international NGOs in humanitarian and post-conflict recovery settings, including Kosovo, Burundi, Timor-Leste and Darfur, Sudan. She says that moving from ‘practitioner to professor’ has had its advantages and disadvantages.
“I have learned that my practitioner experience was one of doing ‘research’ and constructing meaning through everyday practice. Because I have worked on these issues and witnessed them first-hand, I am able to identify gaps in scholarship in response to the realities that I have been deeply steeped in. So, I would say to anyone coming into academia as a practitioner – embrace the complementarity of your previous practical experience with all that scholarly inquiry has to offer, and use it to expand your own thinking on the issues you are passionate about.”
Aisling was recently awarded a €2 million European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant to expand her work further through ‘GENCOERCTRL’, a project that will examine women’s lived experience of coercive control in armed conflict. By focusing on the invisibilised dynamic of coercive control, she hopes to facilitate women’s own articulation of their experiences and secure recognition and better responses to these more insidious harms.
There are times where the value and integrity of doing feminist research on women’s lives is questioned – which, I have to say, just evidences the need for this work!
She is keen to stress that getting to this point as a researcher has not been easy and there have been many obstacles to overcome on the path to this wonderful achievement. She has found travelling to conduct 'field' research challenging for example, particularly when she needs to do empirical research for prolonged periods. She advocates for conversation around structural change to support researchers who are also in caregiving roles.
“As a lone parent, I see the need for our research institutions and cultures to better understand the realities of the huge practical, financial and emotional burden involved in planning and organising yet another set of child care, in a different place, for a limited period and then while there, managing your child’s transition into new care arrangements…as well as, at the same time, trying to make the best of the time available to conduct empirical research. It shouldn’t be this hard!! By talking more about these issues, we can all contribute to creating the kinds of work and research culture we want to be part of. I hope that by speaking about these issues, others coming along behind me will benefit."
Aisling is passionate about the importance of feminist research in shaping our society. "Doing research through feminist methodologies and in feminist ways matters – there are times where the value and integrity of doing feminist research on women’s lives is questioned – which, I have to say, just evidences the need for this work! Feminist scholarship is and should be varied and critical, reflecting the diversity of different researchers’ perspectives and the different experiences of women globally. It shows how asking questions about women’s lives teaches us more about our social world.”