J&V Research Network and EXCEPT co-hosted seminar- Dr Al McFadyen, MBE- Coercive Control, Black Lives Matter and restricted breath for understanding

The introduction of an offence of intentional strangulation and the inclusion of questions about strangulation and choking in the DASH (Domestic Abuse, Stalking & Harassment) risk assessment reflect the significance of threats to breath in domestic abuse & violence. Similarly, “I can’t breathe” signifies the significance of chokeholds, lynching and the use of fatal force in racialized oppression. But it also signifies the suffocating experience of oppression. This talk draws on the speaker's experience of policing and examines the relationship between literal and figurative suffocation as a way of understanding both coercive control and the experience of racism and on recent thought in Black theology for understanding the significance of breath in oppression and the life-giving, life-sustaining resistance to its effects.

Bio: Al’s MBE is for services to policing and the community. He is theologian at the University of Leeds who works part-time as a police officer (unpaid). Recent publications: ‘Theology, Torture, Terror, Policing: How not to have enemies or to overcome evil’ in Overcoming Evil with Good: Interdisciplinary Reflections from Theology, Social Psychology, and the Military, ed. Dahlgrün, et al (Wissen-schaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2022) ‘Loving the Neighbourhood; Loving Enemies: Towards a Theology for (and from) Policing’ in Criminology and Public Theology, ed. Millie (Bristol University Press, 2021) ‘I Breathe him in with every breath I take’: Framing Domestic Victimisation as Trauma and Coercive Control in Feminist Trauma Theologies’ in Feminist Trauma Theologies, ed. O'Donnell K &Cross K (SCM Press, 2020)