Violences sexuelles et judiciarisation: repenser « l’expertise » à la lumière des théories féministes du savoir situé ?

Abstract

By focusing my reflection on the experience of survivors and victims of sexual violence, I highlight in this article the way in which legal "expertise" in matters of sexual assault has been constructed by excluding the knowledge of people who experience violence. I thus mobilize feminist theories from the situated point of view in order to show the need to place the experiences of survivors/victims at the heart of the understanding of sexual violence as well as the legal treatment that results from it. I first offer a brief overview of feminist theories from the situated point of view to then show the way in which the legal system marginalizes the experiential knowledge of survivors/victims in the problematization of sexual violence. I continue my analysis by highlighting the inescapable nature of the testimonies that constitute denunciation movements such as #MeToo for the understanding of violence, while underlining the effects of exclusion of certain realities that they participate in (re)producing. Finally, taking the example of the Regroupement québécois des centers d'aide et de Lutte contre les Aggresses sxueles (RQCALACS), I show how an understanding of violence centered on experiential knowledge promotes support for survivors and makes it possible to go beyond certain received ideas on the problem of sexual violence.