Many campus members are advancing research on preventing, responding to, and addressing gender-based violence, harassment, and discrimination.
This month we are spotlighting:
Natali Levin Schwartz
Testimony, Resistance, and Sexual Violence: Towards a Political Theory of Testimony as a Democratic Practice
About Natali:
I am a 5th year Ph.D. candidate in the Politics department at UCSC. My research is situated at the intersection between critical political theory, feminist theory, law and society scholarship, and interdisciplinary work on testimony. I study questions of sexual violence, resistance, and the relationship between law and activism.
In addition to my research, I have a rich experience working as a teaching assistant for courses in the Politics department and Legal Studies program, such as Early Modern, Modern, and Contemporary Political Thought, Civil Liberties, and Intro to Legal processes.
I bring my research and teaching experiences to my practical work and strive to advance DEI on campus. As part of that, I currently serve as a mentor of an undergraduate student through the MINT program (Matriculating, Influencing, Networking, and Triumphing). MINT was designed to mentor female students from underrepresented backgrounds who seek to pursue graduate studies. I am also deeply committed to improving institutional responses to sex- and gender-based discrimination, violence, and inequality. Towards this end, I serve as a graduate intern at the Title IX office and a member of the Coordinated Community Review Team (CCRT) for preventing sexual violence and sexual harassment on campus at UC Santa Cruz.
About Natali’s research project, Testimony, Resistance, and Sexual Violence: Towards a Political Theory of Testimony as a Democratic Practice:
In my dissertation, I develop a novel political theory of civic testimony and demonstrate how this practice can help women struggle against sexual violence and promote a more egalitarian society. Specifically, my study focuses on women’s testimonies within the U.S. and in a more global context, including the anti-rape movement of the 1970s and the contemporary #MeToo movements. It examines women’s testimonies in the official legal sphere and civil society channels, such as social movements and social media. Through these and other examples, my study illuminates the multiple ethical and political impacts of women’s testimonies, including empowering survivors, mobilizing protest, and building local, national, and transnational movements for societal change.
This work has broad political relevance, including for historically marginalized and disempowered groups. While my dissertation focuses particularly on women’s actions to challenge sexual violence, it also suggests that civic testimony is a political tool that different groups can use to illuminate and challenge other injustices. And this is a crucial concern. Despite much progress, we still witness how women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, and other marginalized groups continue to suffer from structural violence, discrimination, and inequality in the U.S. and elsewhere. Understanding what tools are available for marginalized individuals and groups to struggle against these forms of injustice is an urgent task. My work offers the practice of testimony as one critical tool for this work.
To learn more about Natali’s research, contact: nlevinsc@ucsc.edu
Learn more about the research happening on the UC Santa Cruz campus via our monthly spotlights.
