Sexual violence, secrets, and work: Ruling relations of campus sexual violence policy

Campus sexual violence complaints involving students might seem easy to record and report, but university campuses in North America have a culture of secrecy and tend to focus on neoliberal approaches. In this paper, I trace the genealogy of a sexual violence policy from an unnamed university to argue that ruling relations make the current provincially mandated stand-alone sexual violence policies into a performative tool that silences expert knowledges, coordinates institutional practices towards a particular type of sexual violence prevention, and re-inforces a broader neoliberal logic in higher education. I explore my argument in the following three sections: the social organization of the policy and prevention campaign, the rules and regulations of the policy, and the neoliberalism of the current sexual violence discourse. As my analytical framework, I draw on Dorothy Smith's social ontology, which aims to investigate the practices and experiences of people by focusing on work and bodily existence as key points of reference. Drawing upon in-depth semi-structured interviews I conducted with fourteen participants (and one email exchange) at an unnamed Ontario university, I analyze how variously positioned people within an institutional structure negotiate relations of ruling in the specific context of campus sexual violence.