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“Wrong Problem, Wrong Solutions”: Sexual Violence, Neoliberal Universities, and the Affects of Institutional Betrayal
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- Author / Creator
- Gorsak, Paige
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This thesis explores the affective and political currents of campus rape culture. Paying
particular attention to neoliberalism’s transformation of Canadian higher education in recent
decades, the author describes a “marketized” campus environment in which school reputation
is frequently prioritized above student well-being, as disclosures of sexual violence impact
university’s standing and enrolment. The author additionally describes how neoliberal
discourses of risk and responsibility serve to download the responsibility for social harms
from institutions to individuals. Thus, in the case of campus sexual assault, students bear the
burden of preventing and managing the aftermath of violence, in a setting where their
disclosures may be denied or ignored. Drawing on the lived experiences of student victims/
survivors who sought support from their universities, the project examines how institutional
betrayal comes to bear on their lives and bodies. Institutional betrayal refers to the harm a
trusted institution causes to the student, over and above their initial experiences of violence.
This project’s participants describe campus cultures in which sexual violence was normalized
or ignored; school staff and services that blamed or punished whistleblowers; and
institutional policies and practices that caused lasting emotional harm. The author argues that
Canadian higher educational institutions offer harmful “solutions” to victim/survivors, in part
because of their ahistorical and apolitical conception of the problem of sexual violence, and
in part because of the market orientation of the higher education “industry.” Bringing
survivor testimony into conversation with feminist political theory and theories of affect, the
author argues that institutional betrayal and neoliberal rape culture are affective phenomena,
with social, psychic, and embodied components. -
- Graduation date
- Fall 2019
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Arts
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.