‘I like rough pubs’: exploring places of safety and danger in violent and abusive relationships

Visual and creative methods of data production have become commonplace in social research studies. However, when researchers come to publish this work, the creativity of their data is often constrained by academic conventions that impose dense, dry, flat prose as the communicative exemplar. The priorities of publishing can hinder our ability to write in an accessible way but when we are writing as a project of social justice it is important to engage both cognitively and emotionally with an audience. Drawing on research with mothers and daughters residing in a marginalised area in south Wales, this article focuses on narratives of violence and domestic abuse. Moving from a contextualisation of the topic, to a creative presentation of participants’ stories, the article explores the process of liberation through writing; and the ways in which poetic writing exploits reflection and can inspire an audience to make changes.