Rural development: putting the last first

1. Contracting In. 2. Patriarchal Confusions. 3. Contract, the Individual and Slavery. 4. Genesis, Fathers and the Political Liberty of Sons. 5. Wives, Slaves and Wage-Slaves. 6. Feminism and the Marriage Contract. 7. What's Wrong with Prostitution?

The Sexual Contract

Feminist criminologists have helped to criminalize domestic violence in the United States and elsewhere. With this significant accomplishment, scholars also have critiqued the intended and unintended consequences of such reliance on the state for women's safety. One such critique reveals the intersectionality of social inequalities, social identities, and domestic violence. Here, the authors analyze the relationship between immigration and domestic violence based on interviews with 137 immigrant women in the United States from 35 countries. They find that immigration shapes how women understand domestic violence, their access to resources, and responses to domestic violence. This project documents observed dynamics of structural intersectionality for immigrant women as national origin and citizenship status are considered as another layer of identity politics and marginalization in relation to domestic violence.

Intersectionality, Immigration, and Domestic Violence

This article examines the subjective experiences of South Asian women in the United Kingdom who have suffered domestic violence, and identifies some of the risk factors for domestic violence within this community. The study, based on in-depth interviews with 18 Asian women, describes and analyses several aspects of domestic violence in relation to South Asian women. The guiding research questions are: how do Asian women interpret their experiences of domestic violence, and to whom do they report it? This article presents data that suggest that abusive acts against Asian women arise out of a multiplicity of cultural circumstances influenced by power relations. Abusive acts are not therefore limited to a single characteristic, such as physical abuse, or to a particular relationship. Recurrent themes emerge from the women's accounts, revealing their definitions of domestic violence and showing how some continue to play down the levels of violence they experience.

The article voices the concerns of and hardships experienced by victims and survivors of domestic violence, in their own words. Finally, the article offers an analysis of the ways in which notions of honour and shame are used both as tools to constrain women's self-determination and independence, and as catalysts for domestic violence when these notions of family and community are challenged by women.

Voicing the Silent Fear: South Asian Women's Experiences of Domestic Violence

There are clear gender differences in the experience of domestic violence and associated mental health outcomes. There is also increasing evidence of chronic, severe and often long-term adverse mental health effects for victims. This paper explores these gender differences and the evidence on how mental health care services should respond to domestic violence. The authors argue that any strategy to reduce the burden of women's mental health problems should include efforts to identify, prevent or reduce violence against women.

Domestic violence and mental health

This article focuses on South Asian women's activism, and its impact on diversity and social development in South Asian communities in east London. It discusses the experience of the Newham Asian Women's Project (NAWP), which is committed to secure social justice for women and children escaping domestic violence. The article examines the tensions between the global phenomenon of violence against women and women's specific experiences of violence in different cultural settings. There is a parallel tension between universal responses to violence as a human-rights violation, and more culturally situated approaches. The article emphasises the ways in which NAWP's work addresses gender, race, and class-based inequality, using participatory approaches to empower women and direct the strategy of the organisation. For South Asian women in Newham, activism emerges out of their everyday resistances to oppression, which are based on ideas of community and family.

Empowerment through activism: responding to domestic violence in the South Asian Community in London

This article examines the subjective experiences of South Asian women in the United Kingdom who have suffered domestic violence, and identifies some of the risk factors for domestic violence within this community. The study, based on in-depth interviews with 18 Asian women, describes and analyses several aspects of domestic violence in relation to South Asian women. The guiding research questions are: How do Asian women interpret their experiences of domestic violence, and to whom do they report it? This article presents data that suggest that abusive acts against Asian women arise out of a multiplicity of cultural circumstances influenced by power relations. Abusive acts are not therefore limited to a single characteristic, such as physical abuse, or to a particular relationship. Recurrent themes emerge from the women's accounts, revealing their definitions of domestic violence and showing how some continue to play down the levels of violence they experience. The article voices the concerns of and hardships experienced by victims and survivors of domestic violence, in their own words. Finally, the article offers an analysis of the ways in which notions of honour and shame are used both as tools to constrain women's self-determination and independence, and as catalysts for domestic violence when these notions of family and community are challenged by women.

Aisha Gill

Papers

Voicing the Silent Fear: South Asian Women's Experiences of Domestic Violence

Empowerment through activism: responding to domestic violence in the South Asian Community in London

Voicing the Silent Fear: South Asian Women's Experiences of Domestic Violence