Jana Kujundzic

Jana joined Northumbria University in September 2022 as a Lecturer in Criminology. Before that, she was a Lecturer in Criminology at Kingston University and a Research Assistant in Criminology at the University of Hull, providing research support on the AREDAA study (‘Audio recording-enabled domestic abuse alarms (AREDAA) to reduce DVPN violation: A feasibility study and process evaluation’).

She was awarded a PhD in Criminology in March 2022 and her thesis was titled: Marital Rape in Croatia: Law, Economic Precarity and the Politics of Professional Judgment. She has taught sociology and criminology undergraduate modules (2019-2021) at the Department of Sociology, University of Essex. She holds two Master’s Degrees: one in Gender Studies from Central European University and the other in Sociology from the University of Zagreb. Her BA was in Philosophy and Sociology. Jana is a long-term member of various grassroots feminist, anti-fascist and LGBTIQ movements in the ex-Yugoslav region.

Jana's doctoral project explored the socio-legal structures and power dynamics that affect the perception, prosecution, and penalisation of marital rape in Croatia. Drawing on in-depth interviews with a diverse range of professional actors, including lawyers, judges, prosecutors, social workers, coordinators of feminist NGOs, women’s shelters’ workers, psychologists, journalists, and academics, and the first-hand observation of a rape trial, her thesis developed new insights into the legal, political and social implications of marital rape in a post-conflict, post-socialist context. 

She has presented her research at more than a dozen local and international conferences. Her current project is seeking to develop the theory and praxis of abolition feminism in the Former Yugoslav region. This includes developing publications problematising capitalism, patriarchy and the state's responses to domestic and sexual violence. The project seeks to critique carceral responses and feminist carceral activism; to map the devastation of the heatlth and social welfare systems following the privatisation and transition in Croatia; and to illuminate the erosion of the progressive socialist legacy of community responses and solidarity in former Yugoslavia.

Her research interests also include the political economy of violence, abolition feminism, decolonial feminism, and queer Marxism.