Merethe Riggelsen Gjørding

Research

I will soon begin a postdoc in which I take further steps in working with restorative values and co-creative methods in research. The project involves designing, excecuting, and evaluating a restorative group processes with people who have experienced and/or enacted violence.


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My PhD dissertation is titled: “What could have been? Exploring incarcerated women’s experiences and speculative visions for prevention in Denmark.”

The research project stems from a wish to learn from currently incarcerated women in order to contribute to a society with less social harm. Through what I term hybrid storytelling, the study presents four reconfigurations of life stories, interwoven with the women’s experiences in the Danish penal welfare system. These collectivized narratives challenge the individualizing tendencies in discussions about crime and offer new insights into incarcerated women’s lives and their institutional encounters prior to conviction.

The project has been guided by three research strategies: 1) decentering the individual, 2) replacing carceral concepts as analytical categories, and 3) engaging speculation and “counter-spells.”

The third strategy, in particular, led to an analysis of the women’s “what if” speculations about how public support could work differently. Through analyzing these longings, I highlight the qualities they hoped to find in public institutions. Building on these insights, the research culminates in a speculative reflection on what I call a transformative harm prevention paradigm.

My methodological approach involved exploring both lived and speculative experiences through interviews and writing workshops with the women. The project is especially shaped by theoretical perspectives from zemiology, abolitionism, and transformative justice.

My main supervisor in this project is Dorthe Staunæs and my co-supervisor is Charlotte Mathiassen

Cooperation and dissemination

Research communities

• Member of the research group Sociology and History of Welfare Work

Engagements beyond academia

Before my PhD research, I was affiliated with the organization SAVN – Children and Relatives of Incarcerated People for four years, where I primarily worked with relational support.

For the past six years, I have been active in the network  Genopret KBH, which works to transform local conflict cultures. We organize workshops on restorative and transformative justice and collective accountability, and we also facilitate conflict resolution processes.

These experiences have greatly shaped me as an educator. I typically structure a learning space around values of collective responsibility and co-creation, inviting participants to be courageous, caring and reflective together.

I am open to being contacted for talks and workshops on the Danish justice system, understandings of justice, and abolitionism.

Teaching

Have taught or am open to teaching in:

• The Danish legal and penal system

• Restorative and transformative justice

• Feminist abolitionism

• Fieldwork as method and methodology

• Arts-based research methods