Transformative conversations. A reflexive feminist critical discourse analysis of women in the criminal justice system in England and Wales

In this thesis I aimed to explore how women talk about and are talked about in the criminal justice system. This involved consideration of the discourses that are drawn upon and used to account for women’s experiences and the subject positions occupied or made available by those discourses. It also involved consideration of what use is made of discourse and the conditions under which particular discourses are reproduced, challenged, and amended. This then allowed for exploration of the nature and potential associated with an alternative, more feminist jurisprudence. Talk and subjectivities arise in context, and that context has two levels. So, the broader discursive context of patriarchy and oppression and the immediate context being that of the interview. Given the subtle ways that oppression may be communicated and reproduced, this thesis explores both contexts and how I developed, and others might develop, the capacity to open up discussion on discourse that re/produce women’s inequalities, injustices, exploitation, domination, exclusion, and marginalisation. This research involved myself and the participants engaging collaboratively in the co-construction of knowledge about their experiences. This was because the research was underpinned by a growing recognition that meaning is produced through interaction, and that the researcher is implicated in shaping the narratives and ‘truths’ that are identified through the research process. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with two participant groups. The first included women with lived experience of the criminal justice system in England and Wales, particularly those who have spent time in prison. The second group consisted of professionals working within various criminal justice agencies who have supported or managed women who have offended. Data analysis for this thesis was informed by a synthesised analytical approach drawing on the insights of feminist critical discourse analysis and discursive psychology. The approach was therefore underpinned by a combination of constructivist and critical theoretical paradigmatic sympathies. I embraced constructivism because it allows for human agency and an exploration of how language is used to build accounts and portrayals of people and events. I also drew on critical theory which allows for talk to be contextualised both historically, culturally, and in terms of the available language system people have at their disposal. I explored how service provider participants crafted their talk to position themselves and others during the interview. Participants were active in the process of constructing and positioning women involved in the criminal justice system as particular examples of women, and for the most part the positioning was negative and judgemental, based on women having transgressed dominant discourses of how women should be. These dominant discourses were intricately woven together to construct and delimit the talk of the women who had offended and the professionals engaged with women within the criminal justice system. However, more marginalised discourses were rehearsed and empowered subject positions occupied by women at times. Such instances provided the foundations for more critical dialogue that might underpin social change. Discourses which if nurtured as part of a transformational conversation might be associated with improved experiences for women in the criminal justice system. This thesis addresses the issue of how practice in the criminal justice system can evolve to better serve the needs of women. But as much as this thesis seeks to add to the existing literature on how to empower women in the criminal justice system, it documents a process of my becoming a critical discursive feminist researcher, elucidating and celebrating research as a process as much as an end product. As such, this thesis does not simply describe a transformative conversation; it enacts that transformation on the page. In this sense, it functions not only as an academic thesis but as a performative and reflexive one, allowing the reader to witness the analytical and personal shifts as they occur.

Citation

Cooper, A. (2025). Transformative conversations. A reflexive feminist critical discourse analysis of women in the criminal justice system in England and Wales [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. University of Chester.

Publisher

University of Chester

URI

https://chesterrep.openrepository.com/handle/10034/629984

Type

Thesis or dissertation