Non-intimate femicides, particularly ‘stranger’ femicides, spark exceptional public fear. However, there has been little study of what constitutes ‘non-intimate’ femicide, how it is measured, and how to distinguish it from ‘intimate’ femicide. There is a sizeable body of sociological scholarship that speaks to changes in how intimate relationships are expressed, lived and practiced, with contemporary concepts of intimacy being defined not only physically, sexually and romantically but situated within broader frameworks of friendship and social relations. To examine the challenges this creates for delineating ‘intimate’ and ‘non-intimate’ femicide, this paper presents preliminary findings from a scoping review to identify current definitions and concepts of non-intimate femicide and the types of evidence that exist in relation to this type of femicide. The search strategy consisted of electronic database searches (e.g., MEDLINE Complete, Social Policy and Practice), citation-tracking, and hand searches of key non-governmental organisation websites (e.g., EIGE, UNODC, Femicide Watch). Sources were eligible for inclusion if they reported on women or girls aged 10 or above killed by non-intimate or non-domestic relations. To minimise bias, restrictions were not placed on study context, publication language, or research design. After a narrative synthesis of results, our findings demonstrate that non-intimate femicide encompasses a range of contexts of femicide (e.g., sexual femicides, work-related homicides, human trafficking) as well as relationships (e.g., strangers, friends, acquaintances, clients, and employers). However, we also found that a significant proportion of sources, even if they do report a non-intimate relationship, do not substantively engage with the gendered contexts and motivations of non-intimate femicide. Our findings point to a need for further disaggregation of ‘non-intimate’ relationship and a deeper engagement with the structural contexts in which these femicides occur.

The literature on safety work has been well established by scholars such as Kelly (2012) and Vera-Gray (2018). However, to the researcher’s knowledge, no research considers safety work or associated safety zones (Hayes, 2013; Rajah, 2007; Stark, 2007) used by women in the context of intimate partner homicide where digital coercive control has been used as a means of abuse. Instead, this tends to be considered as part of the larger intimate partner abuse and sexual violence literature. This presentation will illuminate the experiences of women who were able to express limited agency during periods of intimate partner abuse which resulted in their death. The use of safety work in these cases enabled women to reclaim moments of autonomy and agency where darkness and constant struggle impacted every part of their daily lives. Using a qualitative feminist methodological approach, this presentation will highlight the positive ways in which women increased their "space for action" using digital media in the face of adversity (Kelly, 2003: 143). To date, existing research focuses on perpetrators use of digital media to expand the remit of coercive control. However, this presentation aims to underscore the limited but significant ways digital media provided a platform for fighting back thereby, centralising victim and co-victim narratives. Unstructured interviews with victims’ families’, referred to as co-victims, will form the basis of this discussion. This research found that the use of reverse charge phone calls, posting of comments and changing of relationship status on Facebook allowed these women to change their narratives - albeit in small ways - which enabled them to seize control in abusive relationships even just for a short period of time.