Tyra Waul

Criminology and Sociology - BA (Hons)

I am a 3rd year Sociology and Criminology Student with a keen interest in race relations and domestic violence.

As a Race Equality Advocate and a Diversity and Cultural Change Intern, much of my work focuses on adapting the curriculum to encourage and increase cultural diversity and have come up with a number of initiatives to help ameliorate some of these issues.

As a Diversity and Cultural Change Intern I am undertaking a review of the Unsilenced tool and highlighting issues with the tool for students reporting incidences of harassment.

My dissertation entitled ‘Emotional Violence: An Exploration of an Arguably Unacknowledged Phenomena’ aimed to explore people’s perceptions of different actions of violence in relationships which is estimated to be the most prevalent form of violence in Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). However, there is a disparity with how severe people perceive these acts to be. Therefore, through primary research via a survey and data analysis I was able to gauge where this difference may lay. At current, emotional violence does exist in policy however is not enforced in policing practices and court proceedings in the same way sexual and physical domestic violence is, which provides significant challenges for individuals subject to emotional violence within the home.

These challenges include difficulty getting help or being less likely to seek help, emotional IPV going undetected, and increased experiences of sadness and distress. With the consequences of emotional violence not fully understood with regards to law, one can only imagine the impact this has on general public beliefs of emotional violence as a valid form of domestic violence. Particularly when considering the way in which law impacts how people talk about actions in everyday interaction responses to emotional violence from friends or family members might be much different to that of physical domestic violence. This can limit the support available for individuals subjected to emotional violence whilst also minimising their experience.

This further led me to explore and challenge commonplace notions of what constitutes domestic violence.