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Dr Rachel Seoighe

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Senior Research Fellow

Research keywords: activism, resistance, social justice & hope; state violence; environmental justice; abolition; feminist, decolonial and coproduced methods; the Tamil justice struggle; the Irish language and cultural revival

Dr Rachel Seoighe is a criminologist concerned with state violence and resistance. Her research is transdisciplinary and aligned with scholar-activist and creative approaches. Her published work focuses on Sri Lankan state crime and denial and the Tamil justice struggle, including memory activism in the diaspora. Another significant area of Rachel's research is abolition feminism, women's imprisonment and the closure of Holloway Prison.

Among other projects, Rachel is currently working on Flow.Walk.Drag., which explores community responses to sewage and water-borne bacteria in Margate and Liverpool. She is co-founder and director of Hearth Consultancy Ltd and Tend Toward Justice CIC, providing support for social justice organisations and carrying out social research. 

Publications

Chapters & articles

  • Seoighe, R. (2023) “Hope in activist criminology” in Canning, V., Martin, G. & Tombs, S. (eds.) The Emerald International Handbook of Activist Criminology (Emerald Studies in Activist Criminology). Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 93-106.
  • Guest, C. & Seoighe, R. (2022) “Knowing and Not-Knowing: I-poems and Dialogue as a Decarceral Feminist Methodology” in Boutcher, S. A., Shdaimah, C. S., & Yarbrough, M. W. (eds.) Research Handbook on Law, Movements and Social Change. United Kingdom: Edward Elgar, pp. 372-390.
  • Guest, C. & Seoighe, R. (2021) “Generating abolitionist affect: decarceral feminist methodologies and the closure of Holloway Prison” in Coyle, M. J. & Nagel, M. (eds.) Contesting Carceral Logic: Towards Abolitionist Futures. Routledge, pp. 77-89.
  • Seoighe, R. (2021) “Memory and resistance in the London Tamil diaspora: reflections from the ‘Tamils of Lanka: a timeless heritage’ exhibition.” Tamil Academic Journal, 21-50. ISSN (online) 2755-175X.
  • Seoighe, R. & Cuevas, H. (2021) “The decaying port city as a tourist destination: Valparaíso’s commodified decline.” European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes 4(2), 82–107.
  • Seoighe, R. (2021) “Reimagining narratives of resistance: memory work in the London Tamil diaspora.” State Crime Journal 9 (2), 169-195.
  • Guest, C. & Seoighe, R. (2019) “Familiarity and strangeness: seeing everyday practices of punishment and resistance in Holloway Prison.” Punishment and Society 22 (3), 353-375.

Book

  • Seoighe, R. (2017) War, Denial and Nation-Building in Sri Lanka: After the End. London: Palgrave MacMillan.