Salary: £40,000 – 45,000 pro-rata, depending on experience
Application deadline: June 9th 2025
We are seeking a researcher to join us in exploring how “intimacy” is understood across different cultures. In this role, you’ll collaborate closely with our Head of Movement Building and Policy.
This is an exciting opportunity for a researcher with expertise in trauma-informed methodologies to deepen their skills and make a meaningful impact. You can be based anywhere in the world, but experience working in the Global South and across diverse cultural contexts is essential. Given the sensitive nature of this research, we’re looking for someone with significant experience working alongside survivors of gender-based violence, particularly those from minoritised and marginalised backgrounds.
About Chayn
Chayn is an award-winning, open-source collective that leverages technology to empower women against violence and oppression so they can live happier and healthier lives. Chayn started in 2013 to provide survivors of abuse with accurate, diverse and accessible information.
Since our beginnings, over half a million people have accessed our award-winning work online, generating 1.2 million page views. Up to 70% of our volunteers are survivors of abuse which means not only are our projects user-centred–they are user-led. We are experts in trauma-informed work and have developed trauma-informed design principles that we apply at every level of the organisation from HR through to user research, through to UX/UI. We are one of the few feminist technology projects tackling gender-based violence while creating and maintaining openly-licensed products and code.
While we’ve been going for nearly 10 years, Chayn was entirely volunteer-led until 2020 when we started to grow our team of paid staff. We are now a core team of 11, with up to 10 supporting contractors working together remotely from all over the world.
About the Project and Role Description
While image-based abuse is often associated with sexual content or nudity, cultural context plays a crucial role in what can be deeply harmful to survivors. In some societies, a photo of a woman without her hijab or holding hands with a man who is not her husband can be just as devastating. However, under many laws currently implemented or being drafted in the Global North, survivors in these situations often have no legal recourse, as such images are not classified as “sexual” or do not contain nudity. Likewise, many technology platforms fail to recognize the harm in these cases, making it difficult for survivors to have the images removed.
To address this gap, we are embarking on a long-term, open research project to build a cultural map of what “intimate” means around the world. You will be engaging survivors and experts through workshops, interviews, surveys, social media and also monitoring news and discussions on social media forums. The findings will be published as the research progresses.
To ensure we’re getting a comprehensive and in-depth picture of the nature of the harms and the tactics used by those who perpetrate image-based abuse, we are going to start with a few countries in a region (as well as its diaspora abroad) before moving on to another region. We will begin with Pakistan in South Asia due to our extensive network of partners there who are also actively working on this issue, before working with partners in neighbouring countries.
We therefore expect the work on this project to take place over several segments. The first segment will be the research focusing on Pakistan to be completed by November 2025.
Across this segment, you would be:
- Conducting at least 10 interviews with IBA experts in Pakistan (or Pakistani diaspora across the world).
- Conducting 20 interviews with women and gender minorities in Pakistan (or Pakistani diaspora across the world).
- Organising three online workshops with survivors of IBA.
- Analysing and synthesising interviews
- Reporting back to the internal team.
- Authoring a report that reflects your finding.
The Head of Movement Building and Policy will provide support and guidance in identifying interviewees and interview questions. She – or other members of the team – will be present during the interviews.
Your biggest challenge to solve
The biggest challenge with this position will be to work in a trauma-informed way on a sensitive topic in a country where you may have limited experience working in. You will also have to complete a report that reflects the full extent of your findings by a set deadline.
Your profile
It’s important that all team members have an understanding of intersectionality and systems of oppression and an affinity with Chayn’s aims and organisational values which can be found here.
Essential
- 5+ years of experience in qualitative research
- In-depth understanding of gender-based violence
- Knowledge about the subject of tech abuse and ideally image based abuse
- Knowledge and experience in researching abuse in different cultural contexts
- Demonstrated experience in ongoing research projects that stay live for a significant period of time (6 months-1 year)
- Demonstrated experience in research projects across multiple countries
- Demonstrated experience creating inclusive spaces in online research settings
- Experience working in the Majority World
- Experience of trauma-informed research practices.
- Experience researching highly sensitive topics/experiences directly with people who have lived experience of those topics or issues or experience working with survivors of gender based violence
Desirable
- Experience and passion for dynamic, multimedia research outputs that may include film, photography, interview excerpts, data analysis, storytelling.
- Experience facilitating online workshops
Our products
Our offer for this role
This work will be undertaken on a freelance basis, we are unable to sponsor visas.
In addition to compensation, Chayn offers:
- Flexible working hours and adaptations for mental health or menstrual leave
- Access to therapy sessions and wellbeing support
- This position is fully remote. However, the position holder must be able to meet with team members in both PST and GMT timezones at least once a week.