Fiona Grattan

Making sense of sex positivity

 profile-picture photograph

PhD Student
School of Psychology

Profile

Fiona Grattan uses a range of qualitative methods to research in the areas of gender, sexualities, sexual socialisation, and body-image. She has expertise in conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis. Her research is at the intersection of critical health, social psychology, and media studies, applying a social justice lens to understanding psychological issues as situated in socio-political, economic, and historical contexts. Her current doctoral work explores how sex and body positive social media constructs sex, sexualities, and the body, how young women and gender diverse people make sense of this content and in turn, the ways these understandings play out in their own lives. This work questions whether and how social movements like sex positivity realise their trangressive potential.

Qualifications

BA Hons (1st Class) in Psychology, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington

MSc in Psychology, awarded with Distinction

Research Interests

Sex, gender, body-image, social constructionism, feminist research, gendered violence, sexual violence, discourse, health care delivery, critical health psychology.

PhD topic

Making sense of sex positivity

Supervisor/s:

Prof Marc Wilson - School of Psychology

A/Prof Mary Breheny

Dr Octavia Calder-Dawe

Labs

JAWS lab