About Dr. Gemma McKenzie

Biography

I grew up in Liverpool, not far from Anfield football stadium, and attended – what was at the time – the largest all girls’ Comprehensive school in the city.  In 2002 I completed my undergraduate degree in English and German Laws and was called to the Bar in 2005.  Still keen on further study, I gained distinctions in postgraduate degrees in International Human Rights Laws (2006) and Public Health (2018) and in a post graduate certificate in Bioethics (2016).  In 2022, I completed my ESRC funded PhD at King’s College London, which explored women’s experiences of freebirthing in the UK.

I am currently an ESRC post-doctoral fellow at the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care. My research explores obstetric violence in the home and also the social standards of so called ‘good’ mothering that pregnant women are subjected to. In addition, I write about creative methodological approaches to research and unique ways to present data.

I have worked in a range of roles and in a variety of sectors.  I have for example, worked for the police, given law lectures and seminars in universities in the UK and abroad, volunteered on Louisiana’s death row, taught English to children in Italy and written reports on strangulation and suffocation homicides for the national charity IFAS.  I have lived in both Warsaw and Berlin and now currently reside in Formby, just outside of Liverpool. In between all of this, I have had three children and co-founded an architectural practice in Cambridgeshire called Devlin Architects.

My motivation is based on a keen sense of social justice instilled in me from a young age by parents who were always fundraising and volunteering their time to local charities and worthy causes.  In addition, I have personally felt the dark hand of the maternity service and my own experiences of obstetric violence are what made me shift my attention to the problems inherent in a system that does not always respect or honour human rights.

As with the websites of all writers, these pages will grow and change as I publish more work.  I hope you find something here that resonates with you.