ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an analytic review of theorisations of sexual violence and gender by selected Scandinavian scholars. The background for the chapter is the need to explain sexual violence, and sexual violence in intimate relationships in particular, as a gendered phenomenon. Despite being crucial to academic thinking, theories and concepts (and the uses that academics make of them) are rarely studied in their own right. Studying the ongoing endeavours to theorise sexual violence is an important and necessary part of the development of sexual violence as a field of study. Although the field is international, scholars live, work and think in particular national and regional contexts, and theorisation also occurs in national and regional contexts. The Nordic countries may be thought of as forming one such community of reflection. This chapter provides analyses of five recent publications by Norwegian, Danish and Swedish authors. The review reveals the theoretical diversity and innovation in making sense of sexual violence among Scandinavian scholars as well as the continued relevance and theoretical potential of a renewed involvement with different strands of second-wave feminist theorisations of sexual violence.
