DrCarol Ballantine

I am an intersectional and interdisciplinary feminist social scientist, interested in gender, sexualities, and violence. My research is critical, qualitative and creative wherever possible.

I received my PhD (2020) from the Centre for Global Women’s Studies in the University of Galway, focusing on narratives of violence in the lives of African women living in Ireland. I have an ongoing interest in the individual and collective construction of narrative identities in the aftermath of violence, and popular representations of sexual and gender based violence. My academic career is enhanced by my work in the international development sector, where I have worked as a practitioner, researcher and advisor with a focus on public policy related to gender, human rights and refugee issues. 

Since my PhD I have worked on numerous large research projects, and gained expertise in sensitive and trauma-informed research methods and creative methods. My ongoing practice and networking seeks to bring these skills to critical areas. My research interests include: twenty-first century gendered and sexualised polarisations; theorising gender-based violence; and conceptualising voice and marginalisation in advocacy and activism. I am passionate about research-led teaching and teaching-led research. With Dr. Stacey Scriver, I co-edit Dearcadh A Graduate Journal of Gender, Globalisation and Rights, which provides a forum for graduate students to begin academic publishing with accompaniment and mentorship. 

I am an adjunct fellow in the UCD school of geography, working with Professor Kath Browne and colleagues on Beyond Opposition, an ERC-funded research project exploring ways of moving beyond social polarisation related to gender, sexuality and abortion in Ireland, Great Britain and Canada. I am currently the postdoctoral researcher on a Higher Education Authority funded project to explore experiences of reporting sexual and gender based violence and harassment in Higher Education in Ireland. 

My personal essays and criticism dealing with issues of identity in modern Ireland have been published in Banshee, The Stinging Fly, Moxy, Headstuff and the Irish Times. My auto-ethnographic book Little Oases is about what mothering my identical twins taught me, an Irish feminist sociologist, about gender and sex. I am represented by Holly Faulks at Green and Heaton literary agency.