Lessons from Pippi Longstocking
Honouring Resistance and Re-Shaping
Responses to Victims of Violence
Allan Wade, Ph.D.
Malmö 8 - 9 dec 2008
Pippi Longstocking is at once the model
of childhood freedom and the soul of dignity and resistance.
Her mother has died, her father is away in the South Seas, she
does not attend school, and cannot read or do arithmetic like
other children. And so, inside her fantastic antics, she is
always a vulnerable child. Generously freckled, with brilliant
red braids and a keen fashion sense, Pippi is gifted with unique
physical and mental powers. She has her own money and is strong
enough to lift a horse – or two policemen - with ease. She
combines playful disobedience with the tactical cunning of
Scheherazade and Metis, heroines who faced other dangers. She
toys with bullies, outwits the bumbling do-gooders who would run
her life, and always finds a way to avoid humiliation. Pippi is
a loyal friend to humans and other animals and the sole
sovereign of Villa Villekulla, a haven away from meddling adults
where children can stay up late and eat Swedish pancakes off the
floor.
Pippi is pure fun but she also inspires
the deeper delights that come with freedom and resistance to
injustice. The personal qualities Pippi possesses – playful
disobedience, spirited defiance, tactical awareness, rugged
determination – are found to some degree in everyone but are
especially evident in individuals’ responses to violence.
Victims tend to resist violations of all kinds, from minor
affronts to dignity to severe and prolonged forms of abuse.
Indeed, the full extent and deliberate nature of violent acts
cannot be adequately understood unless the precise forms of the
victim’s resistance are taken into account. To conceal
resistance is to conceal violence. The process of exploring
victims’ responses and resistance restores dignity to victims
and clarifies perpetrators’ responsibility while it produces
more accurate accounts that enhance all forms of legal, medical,
and social services work.
In this workshop
Allan will present a response-based perspective on human
services work and coordinated community action in cases of
violence. Participants will deepen their knowledge of
resistance to violence, learn about recent research on social
responses to violent crimes, examine the connection between
violence and language, practice the key features of
response-based interviewing, and apply the ideas to their areas
of interest. There will be ample opportunity for questions and
discussion. This workshop will be of interest to anyone
concerned with the problem of violence, including professionals
who work directly with victims and perpetrators; shelter staff,
physicians, nurses, therapists, child protection workers, police,
crown counsel, teachers, and psychiatrists.
Allan's Bio
Allan Wade lives on Vancouver Island where he
works as a therapist and researcher with a background in
micro-analysis of face-to-face communication and language-in-use.
As a therapist, Allan works with victims of wife-assault,
sexualized assault and abuse, psychological abuse, gang assaults,
workplace harassment, and social humiliation. He also works
with Indigenous people who were interned and violated in the
prison camps known as residential schools. Allan is best known
for developing a response-based approach to therapy with victims
of violence, in collaboration with Linda Coates and Nick Todd.
He provides clinical supervision and training to therapists,
police, child protection workers, and transition house workers.
He also consults with policy makers on the development of
coordinated community responses to violence. Allan’s research
interests include individual responses to violence, social
responses to victims and perpetrators, therapeutic interviewing,
and the analysis of violence and language in legal and social
settings. Allan teaches widely and has published several
chapters and articles or response-based practice.
Price: 3600 SEK + VAT
Venue: Center of Malmö
