Personal statement

Dr Rosa Whitecross is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Bath Spa University and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). 

She is a narrative researcher and critical interdisciplinary scholar with a focus on women’s prison narratives. Her research critically examines incarceration through the lens of lived experience and creative practices, grounded in participatory arts-based methods and narrative inquiry.

From the perspective of art as social practice in working towards social justice, she situates narratives of lived experience as expertise and alternative ways of knowing. Her aim is to amplify marginalised voices, and contribute to debates on prison reform and alternatives to imprisonment.

Her monograph, Creative writing with women in prison: Narratives of haunting (2026) is published by Bristol University Press. 

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

  • Narrative research
  • Participatory arts-based/creative research methods
  • Create writing pedagogy
  • Prison writing
  • Punishment and pedagogy
  • Critical criminology
  • Cultural criminology
  • Narrative criminology.

 Research supervision

  • Narrative research
  • Autoethnography
  • Participatory arts-based/creative research methods
  • Art and creative writing as a social practice
  • Social justice and marginalised voices
  • Critical criminology
  • Cultural criminology
  • Narrative criminology.

Research and academic outputs

Go to ResearchSPAce

Creative writing with women in prison: narratives of haunting
book

Whitecross, R (2026) Creative writing with women in prison: narratives of haunting. Bristol University Press, Bristol. ISBN 9781529253238 (Forthcoming)

How bleak is the crow’s nest
book

Whitecross, R, ed. (2021) How bleak is the crow’s nest. Muscaliet Press, Colchester. ISBN 9781912616107

The good guest: reconceptualising creative writing with women in prison as an alternative way of knowing through relational ethics as epistemic justice
article

Whitecross, R (2025) 'The good guest: reconceptualising creative writing with women in prison as an alternative way of knowing through relational ethics as epistemic justice.' Deconstructing Criminology: International Perspectives, 1 (1). pp. 1-35.

“I am surprised they have allowed you in here to do this”: women’s prison writing as heterotopic space of narrative inclusion
article

Whitecross, R (2025) '“I am surprised they have allowed you in here to do this”: women’s prison writing as heterotopic space of narrative inclusion.' Applied Linguistics Review, 16 (1). pp. 321-344. ISSN 1868-6311

Reflections on 'A criminology of narrative fiction' by Rafe McGregor
article

Whitecross, R (2021) 'Reflections on 'A criminology of narrative fiction' by Rafe McGregor.' Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology, 13. pp. 136-147. ISSN 2166-8094

Everyone is a writer: reconceptualising the self as a process in creative writing workshops with women in prison
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Whitecross, R (2025) Everyone is a writer: reconceptualising the self as a process in creative writing workshops with women in prison. In: Symposium on Participatory Media Research and Marginalised Voices, 22 May 2025, Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, UK.

Disparate narrative worlds - women’s prison writing as narratives of haunting
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Whitecross, R (2025) Disparate narrative worlds - women’s prison writing as narratives of haunting. In: Narrative Matters 2025 - Disparate Narrative Worlds: Crisis, Conflict, and the Possibility of Hope, 13-16 May 2025, The American University of Paris and Université Paris Cité, Paris, France.

So sorry lovely: the instance of Kafka’s animal narratives and the ripple effect of narrative empathy in the close reading of women’s prison writing
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Whitecross, R (2024) So sorry lovely: the instance of Kafka’s animal narratives and the ripple effect of narrative empathy in the close reading of women’s prison writing. In: Great Writing International Creative Writing Conference, 13 - 14 July 2024, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK.

Thinking back through their mothers – when women in prison write, weaving a narrative shape to the disrupted self
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Whitecross, R (2023) Thinking back through their mothers – when women in prison write, weaving a narrative shape to the disrupted self. In: Women Families Crime and Justice Network (WFCJ) Seminar Series, 19 July 2023, online.

Of narrative neglect and the most forgotten of writers – towards publishing an anthology of women’s prison writing
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Whitecross, R (2023) Of narrative neglect and the most forgotten of writers – towards publishing an anthology of women’s prison writing. In: Narrative Matters 2023 - Instrumental Narratives: Narrative Studies and the Storytelling Boom, 15 - 17 June 2023, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.

In conversation with the empty shelves of time: on publishing an anthology of women’s prison writing
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Whitecross, R (2022) In conversation with the empty shelves of time: on publishing an anthology of women’s prison writing. In: British Sociological Association Virtual Annual Conference: Building Equality and Justice Now, 20 - 22 April 2022, [online].