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. 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. Jana is a long-term member of various grassroots feminist and LGBTIQ movements in Croatia (Libela.org, Voxfeminae.net, Zagreb Pride and most recently an informal activist group Proud Zagreb which organizes Pride Ride events for the LGBTIQ community in Zagreb, Croatia).

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. She is currently developing publications exploring the specific broader aspect of the state's responses to domestic and sexual violence. This includes problematising carceral responses and feminist carceral activism; mapping the devastation of the social welfare system following the privatisation process in Croatia and the increasing demands on the CSO and SWC to prevent domestic violence; and the erosion of the progressive socialist legacy of community responses and solidarity in former Yugoslavia.

Her research interests also include gender-based violence, the political economy of violence, mainstream feminist activism against sexual violence, anti-carceral feminism, marxism feminist responses to the carceral state and the role of materialistic aspects of survivor's/victim’s support systems.