Criminology - Doctoral Theses

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Sex work, disability and care: towards a 'caring imaginary' for disabled sex workers in Ireland
(University College Cork, 2024) Murphy, Doris Amy; O'Neill, Maggie; Bonfiglioli, Chiara; Irish Research Council
This project investigates the lived experiences of disabled sex workers in Ireland. Theoretically and conceptually it uses a feminist ethic of care, intersectionality, and critical disability studies to analyse my participants’ experiences of accessing care. It also identifies the barriers to care that exist for disabled sex workers in Ireland. This project proposes a ‘caring imaginary’ for disabled sex workers, and it recommends policy-relevant strategies towards achieving this goal. Methodologically, this project uses creative methods, including walking interviews as a biographical method, and map-making. It also takes a feminist Participatory Action Research approach to investigate the lived experiences of disabled sex workers in Ireland. The partner organisations who participated were the Sex Workers Alliance of Ireland, the Sexual Health Centre in Cork, and the Red Umbrella Front. These organisations helped to shape the research questions, aided with the recruitment of participants, consulted throughout the project, and at the end of the project they co-constructed the recommendations and policy implications. They also helped to identify potential stakeholders, eleven of whom took part in interviews to establish the landscape of sex work in Ireland. Following these interviews, six different sex workers with disabilities were interviewed about their experiences of care in Ireland. Eight of the ten interviews were walking interviews, while the other two interviews took place virtually. Some of the themes which emerged from the interviews with stakeholders include: the facilitators of care; barriers to care; and how organisations either upheld or challenged the hegemonic position on sex work in Ireland. Critical analysis of the findings from the sex worker interviews helped to organise the chapters into five different themes: sex work and sex workers’ lives in Ireland, disabled sex work, addiction and sex work, care, and caring imaginaries. Maps of the walks sex workers led were created by the researcher, and these provide a visual insight into the sensory and embodied experiences of the walking interviews from both the researcher and participant. Given the ethos of participatory research that underpins the research and the use of creative methods across the project, two of the participants volunteered poems which are included in the findings chapters. One of the main findings from this project is that the main provider of care to disabled sex workers in Ireland is the sex working community. The idea of care and community care was defined, problematised and discussed at length in the research. Analysis of the research findings led to the development and contribution of a ‘caring imaginary’. The participants in this project noted that the full decriminalisation of sex work would be an important first step towards a ‘caring imaginary’. Recommendations from this project include the full decriminalisation of sex work in Ireland; funding to be made available to sex worker-led organisations to support sex workers as they see fit; and more conversations to be had about disability, sex work, addiction, and the intersectional nature of disabled sex workers’ lives. Organisations which support sex workers should be included in the management of complex cases, and inter-agency working should be encouraged between support organisations. There was agreement across stakeholders and sex workers that support organisations should be led by sex workers, and at the very least that all organisations should access training led by sex workers. This project is the first to investigate the lives of disabled sex workers in Ireland, and proposes a ‘caring imaginary’, which is underpinned and indeed constituted by the knowledge and lived experiences of disabled sex workers. Further research into the intersectional lives of disabled sex workers could include members of the Travelling community, or migrant workers with disabilities in Ireland.
Framing justice in ‘unjust times’: critiquing Irish legal, political, and medical debates on the right to die
(University College Cork, 2023) Keogh, James Patrick; Skillington, Tracey; O'Neill, Maggie
Against the backdrop of notable legal challenges here in Ireland, this research examines the enduring discord between the widespread societal endorsement of assisted dying and the prevailing legislative rigidity that unequivocally rejects it. To support this investigation, a qualitative methodology was applied, involving frame analysis of legal case documents and semi-structured interviews, supplemented with elements of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). This approach helped identify the most dominant interpretive positions that constitute major sticking points of the right to die debate, and explore how these positions are shaped by ideologies, biases, and power dynamics that structure the exchange of ideas, arguments, and counter-positions. Drawing from critical definitions of justice (Forst, 2007; Honneth, 1995; Fricker, 2007) and Foucauldian considerations of power concerning both the physical and the body politic (Foucault, 1978), this study posits that end-of-life controversies are more usefully conceptualised as ‘pained’ experiences (Scarry, 1985), defined from the viewpoint of the suffering body. Providing detailed accounts of how justice regarding the right to die has been constructed in formal decision-making arenas and publicly challenged by an emerging social movement that considers it ‘unjust,’ this body of work observes the residual effects of a deeply conservative Catholic state on experiences of dying. Despite its loosening stranglehold on contemporary Irish society, a nexus of legal, political, and medical power structures continues to thwart efforts to legislate for assisted dying. These forces successfully frame the conditions for its possibility as morally reprehensible and as an extension of suicide, leaving legislators hesitant to take decisive action. Frustrated by the lack of progress on the issue and driven by the desperate pleas of loved ones, this study crucially documents the justifications employed by individuals for taking matters into their own hands and laying a claim upon death themselves. This subversive response, though shrouded in secrecy, speaks to the pressing nature of unfulfilled human needs and the desperate yearning for the fundamental requisites of compassion and agency. It represents a poignant manifestation of the stark realities faced by those entangled in end-of-life crises – realities that demand more urgent and heartfelt engagement from policymakers than currently offered.
Mapping the production of knowledge of cyberterrorism and hacktivism research using an integrated bibliometric and content analysis framework
(University College Cork, 2024) Hosford, Kevin; Windle, James; Lynch, Orla
The proliferation of Internet Communication Technologies (ICT) has prompted scholarly interest in role of ICT in facilitating cybercrime, particularly in the domains of cyberterrorism and hacktivism. Exploration of cyberterrorism and hacktivism has faced challenges stemming from the absence of dedicated platforms, such as academic journals and conferences impeding a consistent research output and hindering collaborative research. In contrast to more established domains like terrorism studies and organised crime studies, the research on cyberterrorism and hacktivism is still in its initial stages within the academic discourse. This doctoral thesis seeks to map the conceptual understandings and production of knowledge surrounding cyberterrorism and hacktivism research throughout a twenty-year period (2000-2020). Employing a modified version of Creswell and Clark's ‘Triangulation Design: Data Transformation Model,’ the research employs bibliometric analysis for a knowledge mapping of the academic domain. Additionally, a quantitative content analysis of definitions pertaining to cyberterrorism and hacktivism sheds light on key issues within the scientific domain. The investigation reveals a dominance of male, single-author publications, primarily originating from the global north, suggesting a potential lack of collaborative trans-national research amongst a backdrop of an array of multi-disciplined parties. The absence of consistent high-impact journal contributions, lack of knowledge cohesion, coupled with an over-reliance towards secondary sources, further hinders the rich and dynamic collection of researchers from achieving a cohesive academic discourse leading to the issue of knowledge fragmentation within academia fields. The analysis of definitions exposes cyberterrorism as predominantly hypothesised, emphasising unspecified actors and potential harms, diverging from conventional notions of terrorism as a spectacle. In contrast, hacktivism is characterised by more group-oriented definitions, rooted in specific events, their injustices, and associated hacktivist campaigns. Recognizing the distinct ideological motivations behind both cyberterrorism and hacktivism, this thesis concludes by proposing an ontological framework in effort to decentralise the dependency towards specific research definitions. This framework aims to facilitate the collection and dissemination of event details related to these phenomena, fostering more extensive and collaborative research efforts in this evolving field.
No ordinary death: the Disappeared of Northern Ireland's conflict
(University College Cork, 2022-08-31) Peake, Sandra; Lynch, Orla; Windle, James; University College Cork
This study is set within the context of the Northern Ireland Conflict, also known as the Troubles. The aim is to explore the impact of enforced disappearances on first and second generation family members. The study relates to the families of a group of people abducted, murdered and secretly buried by republican paramilitaries during the Troubles. The research considers the influence of disappearances on the interpersonal relationships in the families involved and in the communities in which they lived. The project also examines the historical significance of intra-community deaths and of interactions with other elements of society that make up our society such as the church, health professionals, members of the police and government bodies from the period following the abduction to the present day. Disappearing individuals is a phenomenon that occurs and has occurred outside of NI’s Conflict. The researcher draws on the experiences of families in other conflicts around the world, whose loved ones were also disappeared by paramilitaries, to examine how the context to the violence impact on the individual and family experiences. The study was carried out using a Grounded Theory framework and involved interviewing 40 people (repeat measures) - parents, siblings, children and other family members of those abducted. The researcher is an insider researcher as she worked with and works as an advocate for the interviewees, both nationally and internationally, for a period in excess of twenty years. Analysis of the data gathered produced eight theoretical higher order concepts, underpinned by a number of higher and lower order categories. These concepts have been developed into a new theoretical framework called ‘Orchestrated Loss’, which explains the impact of enforced disappearance within a conflict situation on individuals, families and communities. This new theoretical framework offers an insight into the unique situation in which the families of those disappeared in politically motivated, conflict-related situations find themselves. It also offers a basis and future direction for additional research in an area that has been under researched, and which is complex and conceptually immature.
Emile Durkheim: the narrative of a liminal subject
(University College Cork, 2021) Flannery, Sophia; Szakolczai, Arpad; Balfe, Myles
Since 1939, Anglo-American biographers have presented a non-political narrative of Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) that has rendered subordinate the political assessments of Edward Tiryakian (1979) and Robert Alun Jones (1986). This is despite evidence existing that corroborates these latter researchers understanding. To elucidate the circumstances behind this disparity this thesis examines these biographies to discover if they display an engagement with rhetorical literary practices. This is to consider if these have caused them to make discursive statements that preclude the valuations of Tiryakian and Alun Jones in the same location from being given full recognition with the effect they limit knowledge formation around Durkheim’s identity. Additionally, it is to explore the situation whereby Tiryakian’s particular offering triggered Durkheim’s identity and this narrative to incur a state of liminality (Van Gennep, Turner) while more modern western biographies on Durkheim activated these to experience a state of permanent liminality (Szakolczai, 2009). To support these efforts, the concepts of liminality and permanent liminality are employed as a conceptual framework while Marie-Laure Ryan’s (2007) view of narrative and Judith Butler’s (1997) understanding of textual silences in conjunction with Foucault’s archaeological method and Derrida’s Theory of Deconstruction are utilised as an analytical framework. The objective is to locate points of agreement within Anglo-American biographies on Durkheim that can be analysed to confirm if the statements they make are exclusionary in form. To additionally enable this process these statements are analysed against others presented by more historically directed researchers. The intent is to unveil points of reference within these texts that connect Durkheim with French politics between 1858 and 1917. To broaden this research scope even further an examination of the level of reflexivity (Bourdieu) that underlies the above situations occurs. The aim is to affirm which of the above interpretations of Durkheim holds legitimacy in the contemporary context (Van Leeuwen, 2007). Moreover, it is to establish if beyond the observations of Tiryakian and Alun Jones, the information that biographies on Durkheim present has the capacity to confirm Durkheim as political in the republican sense and a ‘subject’ (Foucault) of the French Third Republic.

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