Abigail Agosta she/her

Working title of PhD: Accounting for Harm: Retrospective Narratives of CSAM-Related Offending

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Funding Source: Self-funded

Full or part-time: Full-time

Year Commenced: 2026

Supervisors: Eve Mullins and Steve Kirkwood

Synopsis:

Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a persistent and evolving form of sexual exploitation, yet much of the existing research is focused on risk factors, offending pathways, recidivism, economic implications, and online opportunity structures. Less is known about how people involved in CSAM-related offending retrospectively account for harm, victimisation, and responsibility. This study examines how adult men with experience of CSAM-related offending construct retrospective accounts of their past involvement, with a particular focus on harm, victimisation, consent, and responsibility.

It asks how participants describe their relationship to the children depicted and the harm involved, how they explain their behaviour, and how they position themselves in relation to victims, responsibility, and other forms of sexual offending. It also considers how digitial environments and different forms of CSAM, including AI-generated material, shape these accounts.

Using a qualitative, narrative approach, the study draws on narrative criminology and thematic narrative analysis to examine what participants say and how they organise harm, responsibility, identity, and victimisation in the present. Retrospective accounts are treated as accounts of behaviour rather than direct evidence of what participants thought at the time of offending. By focusing on how people participating in the demand for CSAM position themselves in relation to that harm, the research aims to contribute to prevention, intervention, and policy alongside existing work on risk, opportunity, and offending pathways.

Keywords: Child sexual abuse material (CSAM); digital harm; victimisation