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For the last five years, I have studied resistance- as an abstract theoretical concept and a meaningful, tangible lived and felt experience among young people affected by sexual and interpersonal violence. I worked alongside sociologist Dr Camille Warrington, visual artist Becky Warnock, three English charities: Safer London, Imara, and Abianda and 20 young people, aged 13-25. We explored resistance as 1) a term often used to describe the powerful and positive actions of people who are fighting back against being oppressed or controlled, and 2) a term typically used negatively whenever it is used to describe young people. 

Young people who ‘resist’ help, ‘resist’ engagement, ‘resist’ participation in activities that the adults in their lives think are safe or good. In our recent work with multi-disciplinary practitioners, we can agree that ‘resistance’ is deployed to describe young people- but it is rarely a term used in conversation with them- to explore why, how, and when they resist.

We did just that- explored resistance with young people- and we found that they really understood and valued the concept, as a way to help understand their own behaviours, and to celebrate their strength, defiance, intelligence and grit. Resistance also offered an important reframing for their experiences of victimisation: as one young person said, ‘he (abusive ex-partner) can never take away from me, the fact that I didn’t want to be with him!’. It also offered a way to understand how it feels to be overwhelmed by other people’s expectations and the creative and diverse ways that they engage in self-preservation strategies, through pushing back against those expectations. Young people told us that resisting made them feel weightless, powerful, and free.

Together we made a series of zines, a protest quilt and a film to share our ideas. As the project is ending, we are working to develop a resource (a deck of interactive cards) for practitioners to use with young people. We will give the resource out for free to the first 75 practitioners who sign up, and agree to attend our one-day conference in London on the 4^th December.  If you are interested in trialling the resource and attending the conference, then please consider signing up  

You can also read more about this work on our website, ‘, and in our free, open-access article, .

Witten by  from the School of Education and Social Work.

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