Romantic Terrorism ― An Auto-ethnography of Domestic Violence, Victimisation and Survival

Romantic Terrorism offers an innovative methodology in exploring the ways in which domestic violence offenders terrorise their victims. Hayes and Jeffries employ a collaborative auto-ethnographic approach to analyse their own lived experiences of domestic violence, particularly how romantic love is employed and distorted by abusers. Its focus on the insidious use of tactics of coercive control by abusers opens up much-needed discussion on the damage caused by emotional and psychological abuse, which are often overlooked or downplayed in both the literature and the criminal justice system. To this end, it offers strategic advice for policy-makers, practitioners, and criminal justice professionals involved in domestic violence service provision.

Sharon Hayes is an Associate Professor in the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Her previous publications include Sex, Love and Abuse: Discourses on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (2014) and The Politics of Sex Trafficking: A Moral Geography (2013).

Samantha Jeffries is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, Australia. Her research interests lie in domestic violence, sentencing, courts, and Indigeneity and the criminal justice system, which she has published in journals such as the British Journal Of Criminology, the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology and the Journal of Sociology.