Aberystwyth University Law and Criminology academic wins award for feminist scholarship

L to R: The three award winners, Hannah Littlecott, Sarah Wydall and Melanie Morgan, with Welsh Government Finance Minister Jane Hutt

Sarah Wydall from the Department of Law and Criminology at Aberystwyth University is one of three female scholars to receive one of the first Audrey Jones Memorial Awards for Feminist Scholarship.

The new annual research awards are presented in memory of a Welsh woman who campaigned for women’s rights across the world.

Sarah Wydall, who works at the University’s Centre for the Study of Ageing, Abuse and Neglect, was presented with the award for her work on ‘Choice’, a Big Lottery project focusing on justice and elder abuse. The three and a half-year long project which runs until 2018 is working in partnership with national charities such as Age Cymru, Hafan Cymru and Welsh Women’s Aid.

The Audrey Jones Memorial Awards for Feminist Scholarship were presented by Welsh Government Finance Minister Jane Hutt at the annual Wales Assembly of Women conference held at Cardiff University on Saturday 30 April 2016.

On being presented with the award Sarah said:  “I am delighted to have been awarded this Memorial Prize.  I thoroughly enjoyed presenting my research to the Wales Assembly of Women Annual Conference.  Audrey Jones was an inspirational women and it is a great honour to be one of the first to receive the award.”

In presenting the awards Jane Hutt, a long-standing member of Wales Assembly of Women, said: “Audrey Jones fought tirelessly for women’s rights and would have been delighted with the purposeful scholarship demonstrated here today in her memory.”

Audrey Jones represented Wales on the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations and contributed to UN consultations and debates on women’s rights across the world. She died in 2014 aged 84. Up until she retired in 1990 she was deputy head of St Cyres Comprehensive School in Penarth, where she had taught since 1960.

Jane Hutt also requested copies of the research to be sent to her so as she could share them with Welsh Government.

Wales Assembly of Women chair Dr Jackie Jones said: “We are delighted that Jane Hutt wants to share the work of the recipients of our new awards with Welsh Government. It is our hope that these new awards will provide an opportunity for women to raise important issues that may eventually inform and underpin future policy in Wales.”

Wales Assembly of Women conference organiser Dr Jane Salisbury said: “Audrey was always interested to hear about the research of my students. She was incredibly frustrated that far too many research findings remain in dissertations and theses where only a privileged few have access to them. We are delighted to have provided a new platform for female scholars to share their work and ideas.”

The 2016 Audrey Jones Memorial Awards for Feminist Scholarship were presented to:

• Undertaking transformative research with victim-survivors of elder abuse: A story of feminist praxis in Wales. The Dewis/Choice Project. Sarah Wydall, Aberystwyth University.
• Breakfast and Brains: Implications for girls in Wales. Hannah Littlecott, Cardiff University.
• Class, Motherhood and Mature Studentship – (Re)Constructing and (Re)Negotiating Subjectivity. Melanie Morgan, Cardiff University.

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