“Working to get out” of Domestic Violence Relationships among Ethnically Diverse Women

Background: Research indicates that domestic violence survivors are more likely to reach out to informal sources of help such as friends and family members after experiencing victimization (Sabina, Cuevas, & Rodriguez, 2014). Since families and friends constitute the social network and communities in which domestic violence survivors usually live, it is important to examine how they provide help to survivors. Purpose: This research aimed to understand what support domestic violence survivors would like to receive from informal and formal networks. Methods: Using a semi-structured interview guide, data was collected from three female ethnically diverse domestic violence survivors (one African American, one foreign-born Caribbean Black and one foreign-born Indian). For this preliminary study, all participants were recruited through snowball sampling and selected based on their self-identification as a domestic violence survivor. The results that follow are centered on an exploratory analysis of an initial sample size. Results. While women disclosed their decisions to either seek or avoid seeking support, they also each recounted their path to getting out of an abusive relationship. Although each journey reflected the complex and dynamic nature of abusive relationships, all survivors engaged in specific processes to leave their abusers. The findings suggest the core category “working to get out” symbolizes how survivors actively work to get out of violent relationships thus demonstrating their agency and self-determination. In addition to the core category, the co-constructed sub-core categories internalized work (cognitive and emotional), and external work reveals the types of explicit and implicit efforts DV survivors make to escape intimate partner violence. And after leaving, survivors engage in post abuse work on their road toward healing and recovery. This research adds to our current understanding of domestic violence by giving attention to the different types of invisible work women engage in to liberate themselves from an abusive relationship.

Family and domestic violence in remote emergency departments

Australian data taken from police reports, hospitalisation rates and personal surveys has indicated that the severity and frequency of family and domestic violence (FDV) tends to increase with remoteness, however little is known about FDV occurring within remote communities. Remote areas often lack speciality resources and emergency departments (ED’s) within these areas can be the first point of contact or the only place for people to go to for safety and medical care related to FDV. Prior research investigating ED staff subjectivities indicates evidence of frustration and assumptions which may contribute to problematic responses in respect to FDV. It is unclear whether this is occurring in Australian remote ED’s specifically or what might be influencing staff responses, including whether FDV policy, medical and wider societal discourses, or the institutional environment might limit or shape ED staff understanding of this topic. This study therefore aims to explore how and why remote ED staff understand and respond to FDV in certain ways by taking an institutional and contextual perspective of this phenomenon in a small number of Australian remote ED’s. This will involve a critical psychology approach using a post-structural epistemology consistent with Foucauldian discourse and Queer Theory. The study is at the data collection stage which will involve case study observations, policy documents, and staff focus groups and interviews. Data will be analysed using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. Analysis will occur within and between data sets and across hospital sites in an attempt to achieve explanatory depth which could inform clinical practice in regards to how and why rural ED staff understand and respond to FDV in certain ways.

Participation in gender-based violence activism in South Africa: Solidarity, intersectionality and vulnerability

Community psychology principles, which focus on well-being and liberation across collective, relational, and personal domains (Prilleltensky, 2003) seem to have been applied in many current gender based violence campaigns with fruitful gains. The global #MeToo campaign reached mainstream media in 2017 and opened up a space for women to define what harassment, violence, and assault mean and to consider the impact of this on their lived experiences, understandings of their bodies and positions within society (Regulska, 2018).

Intersectional gender based violence campaigns in South Africa such as the One in Nine Campaign, the #EndRapeCulture campaigns and more recently, the #TotalShutdown protests intercepted rape discourse through recognition that political climate, power, race, class, privilege and heteronormativity play a role in risk of sexual and gender based violence. In September 2019, the South African national #AmINext and intersectional #TotalShutdown anti-femicide campaigns reached mainstream media and influenced national government to reconsider its approach to gender based violence in South Africa. This seems to have been made possible through solidarity and activism in these campaigns. Many activists have used self-disclosure about their own experiences of sexual violence during activism campaigns. As community psychologists who also have an understanding of the inner emotional experiences of those affected by sexual and gender based violence, it seems important to consider the psychological complexities for activists, participants and witnesses in campaigns where self-disclosure is also a tool for activism.

Participants of #EndRapeCulture and #SilentProtest anti-sexual violence campaigns at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa were invited to take part in a survey and for face to face interviews. Six face-to-face interviews were conducted and 170 students completed the survey. This paper briefly draws on this data as well as some publically available data such as the online tweets of #EndRapeCulture gatherings to consider some psychological processes during these forms of activism.