Dr Rosalchen Whitecross

Personal statement

Dr Rosa Whitecross is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Bath Spa University. Rosa’s interdisciplinary research draws on the fields of cultural criminology, narrative and literary theory, and cultural studies to creatively explore and critically engage with women’s prison writing as narratives of lived experience. Particularly what it means for incarcerated women to write in prison on a personal level, but also in the wider social context, how their prison writing can provide a counter-narrative or understanding to the master narratives and cultural constructions of punishment.

Rosa uses creative writing workshops as research method to open up writing spaces for the women in prison to develop their own sustained writing practices. This flows from her research interests in creative writing pedagogy in the context of marginalised communities, alongside explorations of prison writing as cultural resources. Following her PhD research, she compiled and edited How Bleak is the Crow’s Nest – an anthology of women’s prison writing. Her doctoral research was funded by CHASE (the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England).

She is also interested in how theories and processes of creativity together with reflection, reflexivity, collaboration and inclusivity, could be applied to teaching and supervising academic writing in disciplines such as Criminology. Rosa has been recognised as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She is also a member of the international research network Women, Family, Crime and Justice (WFCJ), as well as the Narrative Criminology Research Network (University of Oslo).

Prior to commencing her PhD research, Rosa was part of a research team working on youth justice programmes in Cape Town, South Africa. Following the completion of this project, she worked as an Editor in legal publishing and the charity sector, both in South Africa and the UK.

Academic qualifications

• PhD – University of Sussex
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) – Higher Education Academy
• Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE)
• MSc Social Research Methods (Distinction) – University of Sussex
• MA Creative Writing (Novels) – City, University of London
• Admitted as Advocate of the High Court of South Africa
• LLB – University of Cape Town, South Africa
• B Juris – North-West University, South Africa

Professional memberships

• British Sociological Association (BSA)
• Lapidus International

Teaching subjects and areas of expertise

• Punishment and penology
• Gender and punishment
• Prison writing
• Cultural criminology, critical and narrative criminology
• Creative writing pedagogy
• Narrative research
• Qualitative research

 Research supervision

• Imprisonment
• Gender and punishment
• Participatory arts-based research methods
• Art and writing as a social practice