Case Study: Katherine Sheeran and the Ethics of Visual Protest in Data-Driven Feminist Research

Abstract

This case study analyses the work of Katherine Sheeran, a Master of Applied Psychology graduate at the University of Melbourne, who has integrated behavioural science, feminist critique, and public visual communication through her self-initiated research project on intimate partner homicides in Australia. Through the construction of a visual artifact titled STOPKILLINGUS, Sheeran exemplifies a rare fusion of empirical rigor and activist aesthetics. This study explores the epistemological, ethical, and communicative dimensions of her work, situating it within feminist digital scholarship and public behavioral advocacy.

Introduction

In an era of data abundance and political apathy, it is increasingly rare to find academic outputs that are both statistically sound and emotionally confrontational. Katherine Sheeran’s independent project, STOPKILLINGUS, presents a radical counter-model, one in which data does not simply inform, but accuse.

Sheeran’s work began with raw statistical data from the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), which she extracted, structured, visualized, and then transformed into a design artifact hosted publicly on Figshare. The project visualizes 34 years of intimate partner homicide data disaggregated by gender, accompanied by the declaration on the author’s Instagram (@kath.sheeran) story highlight ‘testingU’: “these death statistics are NOT new.”

Methodology

Sheeran’s methodology was wholly independent. It included:

• Extraction of national crime data from AIC archives
• Use of Microsoft Excel for statistical processing and data visualisation
• Design of a protest-oriented visual piece using graphic tools and typographic layering
• Integration of the dataset and artefact into Figshare, a research repository
  

Importantly, this process was not institutionally commissioned; it was self-directed, ideologically transparent, and conducted outside the confines of formal coursework or funded research.

The Artefact: STOPKILLINGUS

The final graphic, posted on May 2, 2024, is characterised by:

• A 100% stacked bar chart showing homicide victims by gender (1989–2023)
• Red-white-black colour scheme, with “stop killing us” superimposed
• An intentional visual collision between statistical objectivity and emotional urgency

This is not a passive chart. It is a semiotic rupture: the reader is denied the safety of neutral analysis and confronted instead with the historical constancy of gendered death.

Theoretical Framework

Sheeran’s work occupies a hybrid theoretical space between:

• Feminist Data Science (D’Ignazio & Klein, 2020): treating data as a moral and political construct
• Visual Criminology (Carrabine, 2012): recognizing that violence must be made visible, not abstracted
• Participatory Archival Practice: reclaiming public records for activist uses
• Behavioural Design: embedding emotional cues within visual language to nudge cognition

Her method also resists the clinical distancing found in institutional criminology. Instead, it insists on affective clarity: death, repetition, gender, demand.

Ethics and Authorship

Sheeran’s use of her full name on both Figshare and social platforms signals an ethics of transparency and accountability. She does not anonymise herself behind research. She enters the archive as a citizen-researcher, fully visible, fully implicated.

This moves her work beyond the scope of academic project and into the realm of civic authorship, where research is done not for institutional reward but for social provocation.

Dissemination and Public Interface

Her Instagram story posts (@kath.sheeran; e.g., the caption “these death statistics are NOT new” overlaid on her Excel dataset and Word document titled GENDER INVESTIGATION; AUSTRALIA) reveal that she treats social media not as a supplement to research but as a publishing platform.

This reflects a generation of researchers who are fluent in multi-modal scholarship and view Instagram as a viable venue for truth transmission.

Conclusion

Katherine Sheeran’s project is not simply a protest or an artwork or a research task—it is a methodological intervention. She embodies a new model of scholar:

• Data-literate
• Morally anchored
• Aesthetically intentional
• Unapologetically political

Her work challenges disciplinary silos by asking a single, visible, and empirically grounded question:

When does knowing become complicity?

References:

D’Ignazio, C., & Klein, L. F. (2020). Data Feminism. MIT Press.

Carrabine, E. (2012). Just images: Aesthetics, ethics and visual criminology. British Journal of Criminology, 52(3), 463–489.

Sheeran, K. (2024). STOPKILLINGUS [Figure]. Figshare. https://figshare.com/articles/figure/STOPKILLINGUS/25738002