Missing women: policing absence

Olivia Stevenson,Hester Parr,Penny Woolnough

doi:10.1111/tran.12160

Abstract

This paper considers the neglected mobilities associated with a sample of UK women reported as missing. Refracted through literatures on gendered mobility and abandonment, the paper argues that the journeys of these women in crisis are not well understood by police services, and that normative gender relations may infuse their management. By selectively exploring one illustrative police case file on Kim, we highlight how reported and observed socio‐spatial relationships within private and public spaces relate to search actions. We argue that Kim's mobility and spatial experiences are barely understood, except for when they appear to symbolise disorder and danger. We address the silences in this singular case by using the voices of other women reported as missing, as collected in a research project to explore the agency, experience and meaning of female mobility during absence. We argue that women reported as missing are not abandoned by UK policing services, but that a policy of continued search for them may be at risk if they repeatedly contravene normative socio‐spatial relationships through regular absence mobilities. By way of conclusion, we address recent calls for research that explores the relationships between gender and mobility.

Highlights

How might we talk and write of missing women? What are the salient geographies of female absence? These terms perhaps immediately evoke juxtaposition
In elaborating Kim’s case, we build in qualitative data from 20 in-depth interviews with returned missing women to understand more about their experiences of absence from ‘the inside’, and to address the silences apparent in Kim’s case
Through this structuring of our materials, we do not claim to evidence all of the drivers or dynamics of missing women’s mobility in UK society, but are able to suggest lines of critical argument and evidence that shed light on temporary female absence and policing practice, both of which are neglected in the geographical literature

Summary

Introduction

How might we talk and write of missing women? What are the salient geographies of female absence? These terms perhaps immediately evoke juxtaposition. In elaborating Kim’s case, we build in qualitative data from 20 in-depth interviews with returned missing women to understand more about their experiences of absence from ‘the inside’, and to address the silences apparent in Kim’s case Through this structuring of our materials, we do not claim to evidence all of the drivers or dynamics of missing women’s mobility in UK society, but are able to suggest lines of critical argument and evidence that shed light on temporary female absence and policing practice, both of which are neglected in the geographical literature. We conclude by making clear our distinctive contribution to current research on gender and mobility

Abandoned missing women

Policing missing women in the UK

Findings

Researching missing women