Creating ripples: Fostering collective healing from and resistance to sexual violence through friendships— Michelle Dang

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Social responses to sexual violence matter. Yet in Australia, and in many other places, responses to sexual violence have become highly professionalised, individualised and privatised, reducing the possibilities for healing redress. Exploring friendships and community responses to violence may increase the possibilities for healing, justice and solidarity. This paper describes a project that honoured and made visible community- based responses to sexual violence. The project sought to enable contribution by eliciting ways in which friends have supported survivors, and ways in which survivors have contributed to their friends and others. The project was guided by narrative practices including re-authoring conversations, outsider witnessing and collective documentation.