My dissertation is a critical ethnography of grassroots feminist agencies and immigrant organizations involved in the governance of gender violence in Toronto, Ontario. Along with examining the agencies operating on the outskirts of the law, I also observe the organizations that contract directly with the provincial government to counsel abusers prosecuted through the city’s specialized domestic violence courts. Drawing on the methodological and theoretical insights of socio-legal studies, postcolonial feminism, and governmentality scholarship, my research explores the governance of domestic violence through the community. Specifically, I examine how the voluntary sector performs the state’s work of prosecuting domestic violence, punishing offenders and building citizens. My research reveals the significant influence that community organizations exert on the prosecution of gender violence and in defining the conditions of punishment for offenders. Through court observation of Toronto’s domestic violence plea court, I show how grassroots administrative workers transform into hybrids of the prosecutor and defense within governance networks. In addition, based on interviews with service providers delivering counseling to offenders, I document how non-profit organizational habits add distinctive flavors to the administration of punishment, materializing in governing regimes that emphasize care in some contexts and discipline in others. Finally, I also explore the dual constructions of immigrant counselors as both the experts and the “others” to the nation with regards to gender violence. In contrast to assumptions of ignorance amongst the immigrant “other” in the liberal imaginary, my findings indicate that the notion of women’s empowerment is nothing new or unfamiliar within Toronto’s diasporic communities; several of the immigrant anti-violence experts involved in this research credit their politicization and training “back home” as foundational to their involvement in feminist and the anti-violence movement. These findings challenge liberal assumptions of the East as a space devoid of the cultural material of women’s empowerment, which form the backbone of Western performances of modernity.

Domestic violence remains a serious social issue. In North America, millions of women are victimized each year, and many of these women are victims of violence at the hand of their intimate partners. A small but growing body of research on domestic violence has shown that companion animals are among the victims of such violence. Abuse of or threats to the pets are used to control, manipulate and emotionally abuse the female partner. However, the majority of this research has focused on the perspective of the abused female partner; the male perspective is missing. Through semi-structured interviews with ten incarcerated men who have committed intimate partner violence (IPV), this thesis explores the abuser’s motivations for abuse of the pet as well as their perspective of pets in the context of a violent relationship. The findings indicate that, contrary to previous research, most men do not abuse pets in the relationship, and in fact have positive relationships with their pets. Just as pets are sources of comfort for women in abusive relationships, pets can be sources of comfort and support for the abusive men as well. When incorporated into violence intervention and treatment programs, relationships with pets can provide a venue for men construct a masculine identity in a positive way, and the treatment of animals can illustrate how violence is not an effective solution.

Bakgrund: Det är ungefär 10 % av barnen som bor i Sverige som bevittnar våld mot mamman i hemmet. Våldet försiggår i olika familjesammansättningar, inom olika socioekonomiska samt psykosociala typer av familjer. Att bevittna våld kan leda till att barnen får svårt att klara sin skolgång och kan även ge både psykiska och fysiska symtom. Skolsköterskan är en person som alla barn på en skola träffar någon gång under sina skolår och har därför en viktig stödjande roll.Syfte: Syftet med studien var att beskriva skolsköterskors erfarenheter av att arbeta med barn som bevittnar våld mot mamman i hemmet.Metod: I denna studie användes en induktiv ansats där datamaterialet analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Datamaterialet bygger på intervjuer som genomfördes med sex skolsköterskor.Resultat: Ur analysen av datamaterialet framträdde två kategorier: identifiera utsatt barn samt tar emot och bekräftar barnets berättelse.Konklusion: Skolsköterskorna försöker skapa en relation mellan sig själv och barnet så att barnet skall uppleva att de har en personlig relation till skolsköterskan och på så sätt ha lättare för att söka stöd hos denne och berätta om sina erfarenheter. / Background: Approximately 10% of the children residing in Sweden witness violence against their mothers. The violence exists in different types of families – both different socioeconomic and psychosocial types. To witness violence can cause a child to struggle with schooling, but also give both psychological and physical symptoms. The school nurse is a person that meets with all the children of a school at least a few times during their school years and as such has an important supporting role.Aim: The aim of the study was to describe school nurses’ experiences of working with children who witness violence against their mother at home.Method: The method used was an inductive approach where data was analyzed with a qualitative content analysis. The data was collected through interviews with six school nurses.Results: Two categories emerged from the analysis; to identify exposed children and to receive and confirm the child's story, with their seven subcategories. Conclusion: The school nurses are trying to create a relationship between themselves and the child so the child feel a personal relationship with the school nurse and therefore seek support from her/him and share own experiences.

The disability movement drew attention to the struggle against the oppression of people of disability. The rise of disability activism contributed to increased awareness of the need for a social theory of disability, in order to account for the historical, social and economic basis of oppression. Emerging studies of disability issues by disability theorists, such as Sobsey (1994), highlighted the higher prevalence and nature of violence against people with a disability, in comparison to the general population. However, the limited research concerning women with a physical impairment experiencing domestic violence contributes to this social problem being underestimated in the community. Contemporary theoretical conceptualisations of both domestic violence and disability fail to explain the causal framework that leads to women who have a disability experiencing violent situations. Similarly, by explaining domestic violence as a solely socially constructed gender inequality and power differential, feminism provides insufficient recognition of the structural dimension of disability. As a preliminary inquiry, this study draws on the premises of historical materialism, and feminism to explain disability and investigates disabilism as a means to examine the experience of domestic violence by women with a physical impairment. The research design incorporated the use of qualitative methods for data collection and encapsulated critical social science and interpretivist epistemology. This study provided the basis for generating an understanding of the nature of domestic violence against women with a physical impairment within this sample group. From this investigation, causal hypotheses can be advanced for subsequent extended research. This study revealed that disabilism together with the interacting structural dimensions of disability, gender and class operated to marginalise and alienate these women with a physical impairment in a violent relationship. This tended to reinforce and entrench violence against women with a physical impairment. The study provides insight into the way social conditions and disabilism interrelate to maintain this group of women with an impairment in a violent relationship and contribute to the experience of poverty and lower social status upon leaving the relationship.

Femicide, homicide involving female victims, accounts for approximately one third of all homicides in Australia. Despite its prevalence, femicide has received considerably less theoretical attention than the more common male-on-male homicide. The current study uses qualitative data from the Coroner’s brief of evidence to examine the social context of homicides which occurred between 1994 and 1998 in Victoria, Australia. All homicides for which data were available that included a female victim were included in the study, resulting in a total of 67 victims. Six social contexts of femicide were identified through the cases. Intimate femicide (22 cases, 33% of the sample) involved female victims who were killed by their intimate partner in a relationship characterised by jealousy, possessiveness and violence. These intimate femicides were usually not spontaneous acts of rage, but planned and purposive attacks, and often occurred around separation. Intimate homicide-suicides (9 cases, 13%) shared many of the characteristics of intimate femicide, but in addition to being possessive and violent, the offender was notably depressed, often due to financial problems.

My research focused on five women in Aotearoa naming and defining their experiences ten or more years after leaving an intimate partner violence relationship. An increasing amount of literature has been published reporting the prevalence of intimate partner violence among women in our society, including surveys documenting devastating short and long-term health effects. However, little has been published about the long-term experiences of women who have survived such abuse. I was interested in making more visible the experiences of long-term survivors of intimate partner violence. I wondered what the challenges and legacies from experiences of intimate partner violence are and what contributes to women rebuilding their lives after intimate partner violence. In this research utilised a participatory action research approach informed by a critical feminist theoretical perspective. I selected two data collection methods, individual interviews followed by a focus group interview bringing the participants together. The findings identified nineteen themes emerging from the individual and focus group interviews. Some expressed the long-term challenges and legacies of intimate partner violence, such as feelings of powerlessness, guilt and shame and feeling silenced. Others reflected ways women rebuilt their lives, such as empowerment, resilience, courage and the importance of education and meaningful work. Interpreting the findings, empowerment was often juxtaposed with powerlessness, living side by side within the inner world of the long-term survivor of intimate partner violence in equal tension. This study affirms that challenges and legacies from intimate partner violence continue to affect women many years after leaving violence. Despite these challenges and legacies, women work very hard to rebuild their lives, care for their children and attain autonomy, independence and control of their lives. Women spent time and energy to recover ‘well enough’ from such violence, in order to lead a productive and functioning life.

This thesis is a study of the processes by which domestic violence, as framed by Australian feminists from the early 1970s, was inserted into the policy agenda of governments, and developed into a comprehensive body of policy. The thesis covers the period between 1970 and 1985. Acknowledging the federal nature of the Australian polity, it examines these processes that unfolded within both the Australian Commonwealth government and the government of New South Wales. The thesis provides a political history of domestic violence policy making in the identified period. It shows that policy responses to women escaping violent partners included both immediate measures (such as protection and justice strategies) and more long-term measures to attempt to secure the conditions for women�s financial, legal and personal autonomy. The elements found to have been most significant in shaping the development of such policies were the roles and identities of the participant players, including the driving role of the women suffering partner violence; the lack of contest in the early stages of policy achievement with established professionals in related fields; the uniquely �hybrid� role and positioning of refuge feminists; and the degree of integration and continuity which characterised the domestic violence policy process. The thesis also investigates the relationship between domestic violence policy making and the broader women�s policy enterprise. It demonstrates the care with which those involved avoided the dangers of sensationalism and tokenism while striving for an appropriate policy response. The thesis pays particular attention to the circumstances in which feminists in the early 1970s experienced their �discovery� of domestic violence. It demonstrates the significance of social and economic circumstances in shaping the political options of feminists in the thesis period and those preceding it, and the extent to which policy possibilities are shaped by representations of the nature and functions of policy itself. Finally, the thesis investigates the relationship between the strategic processes undertaken and the policy outcomes produced, finding that policies achieved in the thesis period complemented and in some ways transcended accepted policy practice in the relevant period.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis is a feminist exploration of how violence against Filipino women in Australia is represented in the Australian and Philippine media and the relationship between the women’s lives and media images of their abuse. It is fundamentally concerned with the problem of the absent and silenced voices of Filipino women in media portrayals of violence. It aims at creating a space in which the women’s stories can be told. Based on interview data and discourse analysis of Australian and Philippine newspaper articles, the study investigates how the homicides and disappearance of seven Filipino women are represented. Case studies drawn from interviews with family members and friends of these women comprise the core of the study. An exploration of additional articles and interviews further reinforces the issues and themes that emerge in the case studies. The case studies contextualise the women’s experiences. Analysing media images in light of the interviews reinstates the absent and silenced voice in media accounts of violence. By charting the lives of these seven women, their hopes and aspirations as well as the pain and fear they suffered at the hands of abusive male partners, the case studies illuminate the way media accounts have largely misrepresented their experiences. Many of the Australian articles, in particular, bore little resemblance to the women’s lived realities. Juxtaposing Australian with Philippine portrayals further illuminates the racism and sexism of a large section of the Australian print media. A major theme to emerge out of this study is that the relationship between media image and actual violence also involves struggle and conflict over constructions of identity. It is a site of contested realities. Most of the articles analysed in this study failed to tell the story from the deceased woman’s perspective. It is argued that to hear these women's voices, journalists need to move beyond using sexist, racist and class-based stereotypes, such as mail order bride, to describe Filipino women or explain their abuse. It also means accounting for the history of domestic violence that was a large part of their lives.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2004. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. Linköping : Univ., 2003.