Gender and Law Research seminar - Dr Katherine Brown

Katherine Brown (Birmingham)

• One of this year's Gender and Law research seminars, and part of the new Women in Law lecture and seminar series
• Postgraduate students and academic staff are welcome to attend.

Abstract:

Over the past four years there have been a number of cases appearing before the family courts that address the impact of extremism, radicalisation, and terrorism, on children and families.  This paper examines cases where children are deemed at ‘risk of radicalisation’ in the family home – rather than cases where children have been radicalised and committed criminal offences – and where local authorities have sought to instigate care proceedings or in private family proceedings. These cases, unlike the more high-profile criminal cases related to terrorism and radicalisation, pose a number of legal and socio-political questions regarding the intersection and limits of counterterrorism in the ordinary and religious lives of citizens. As feminist scholars across academic disciplines have noted, the way women are treated in courts, their relationship to state agencies and state security, and the framing of key legal concepts are rarely gender equal and often racialised. This paper addresses these broad issues through a gender perspective, and focuses on what these cases say about a) processes of radicalisation, b) women’s and children rights in the UK, and, c) securitisation of family law.