Hannah E. Britton
Social and Behavioral Sciences - Political Science, Women, Gender & Sexuality StudiesHannah Britton is an associate professor in the departments of political science and women, gender, and sexuality studies. Britton's scholarship focuses on women and politics, gender and African politics, the prevention of gender-based violence, and human trafficking. Britton is also the Director of the Center for the Study of Injustice at the Institute of Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas. In this role, she coordinates KU's Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Initiative (ASHTI), which is a working group of faculty and students engaged in teaching and research about slavery, labor exploitation, and commercial sexual exploitation. She is the lead researcher on a project in the Midwest examining the factors that may leave someone vulnerable to exploitation. Hannah also coordinates a working group of faculty and graduate students using qualitative research methods in their teaching and scholarship.
Teaching Interests
- Comparative Politics
- African Politics, Gender and Politics
- Human Trafficking
- Qualitative Methods
- Feminist Theory
Research
For the past twenty years, my research has focused on the intersection of gender, sexuality, nationality, and ethnicity as factors affecting social status, political power, and violence prevention. Much of my early scholarship focused on improving the socio-economic and political position of women in post-conflict settings, in particular in southern Africa. More recently, my work examines how individuals and communities address the risk, protective, and resiliency factors affecting (1) human trafficking, including sex and labor exploitation and (2) intimate-partner violence and gender-based violence. My twenty years of field-based research in South Africa and Namibia and my more recent work in the Midwest U.S. provide a wealth of experience in designing community-based research projects. My primary research methodology has been field-based research in both rural and urban settings, and I have employed a range of qualitative research methods including interview research, focus group research, participant observation, document analysis, and content analysis. Through this field-based research, I have extensive knowledge of reaching hidden populations, of working in urban and rural areas, of establishing networks of community partners, and of designing researcher and participant safety measures.
Research Interests
- Comparative Politics
- Gender and Politics
- African Politics, Human Trafficking
Service
Hannah Britton is the Director of the Center for the Study of Injustice and the Director of the Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Initiative at KU.
