New pathways in the evaluation of programmes for men who perpetrate violence against their female partners

Today, evaluation research in the field of intervention programmes for men who perpetrate violence against their female partners still makes a fragmentary impression. Across Europe various evaluation studies have been performed. However, the methodologies applied are too heterogeneous to allow the combination of the results in a meta-analytical way. In this paper we propose a future pathway for organising outcome evaluation studies of domestic violence perpetrator programmes in community settings, so that today’s problems in this field can be overcome. In a pragmatic framework that acknowledges the limited pre-conditions for evaluation studies in the area of domestic violence perpetrator programmes as it is today, feasible approaches for outcome evaluation are outlined, with recent developments in the field taken as starting points. The framework for organising future evaluation studies of work with perpetrators of domestic violence is presented together with a strategy to promote this framework. International networks of practitioners and researchers play a central role in this strategy through upskilling the area of practical work, preparing the ground for evaluation research and improving cooperation between practitioners and researchers. This paper is based on the results of the European funded project IMPACT (under the Daphne-III-funding programme of the European Commission).     

Sources of family violence

This paper suggests a direction for the exploration of the causes of family violence. Explanatory models of family violence were considered in this regard, with the recommendation that a multi-determined model should be considered to ensure the most accurate explanation. We suggest that family violence will be best understood and prevented or alleviated, if a model is used that considers the interaction of structural violence and the personality features of all the family members.     

Sources of Family Violence

This paper suggests a direction for the exploration of the causes of family violence. Explanatory models offamily violence were considered in this regard, with the recommendation that a multi-determined model should be considered to ensure the most accurate explanation. We suggest that family violence will be best understood and prevented or alleviated, if a model is used that considers the interaction of structural violence and the personality features of all the family members.     

Organization as containment of acquisitive mimetic rivalry: the contribution of renŕe girard

This paper considers relations between violence and organization as seen through the lens moulded by Rene Girard. This is because more than any other writer of his generation Girard postulates the primacy of violence in his sociological theorising. In this paper we first outline Girard's theory. Next we discuss this in relation to Freudian theories of organization. We then draw out some of the implications of his theory for the understanding of topics within Organization Theory, such as bureaucracy and sexual harassment. Finally we suggest a research agenda.     

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain!

Abstract

This paper considers issues of violence against women through the conceptual lens of public/private ideology, exploring numerous ways that the public/private dichotomy is reinforced in the law and public policy of rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment. We argue that the power of this ideology continues into the contemporary law of gendered violence, as evidenced most recently by the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Morrison (2000). We find that public/private ideology offers men a “violence shield”: freedom from scrutiny that enables gendered violence to thrive. Although gendered violence is now on the public agenda, these crimes remain shielded from scrutiny because they are associated with the private sphere. We suggest that feminist activists concentrate on undermining these ideological roots when crafting strategies to combat violence against women.     

Family Mediation in Ireland

Using domestic violence support services as a case study, this paper examines how the ascendancy of neo-liberalism has individualised and pathologised public issues. Four perspectives are identified that have been influential in understanding the causes of domestic violence, determining responses to it and measuring the effectiveness of support services. These four perspectives may be categorised as: (i) victim-blaming; (ii) social movement; (iii) empowerment; and (iv) pathologising. From analysing the standard outcome measures currently used for government-funded accommodation programs, the author contends that the pathologising perspective dominates. This is partly attributable to the inherent methodological and ethical issues in evaluating programs of this nature. However, it is primarily driven by the ascendancy of a neo-liberal, managerialist ideology that has depoliticised and clinicalised domestic violence. This has effectively silenced structural analyses of domestic violence and displaced feminist service models.     

VALUES IN CONFLICT: CHALLENGES TO FAMILY THERAPISTS' THINKING

Our familiar and comfortable family therapy theories were not designed to deal with violence and may help maintain our collective avoidance. Our formulations appear to make violence more manageable than it is and demonstrate our naivete. The limitations of therapeutic neutrality are explored as are the dangers inherent in some of our interventions. Effective amelioration of family violence requires linkages to larger systems.-Editor.     

The Role of Access Groups in Facilitating Accessible Environments for Disabled People

This paper considers the contrasting ways in which disabled people seek to overturn socio-attitudinal, political and physical barriers to their mobility and access requirements in the built environment. In particular, the paper documents how disabled people are attempting to influence the form and content of local authority access practices and policies in the UK, through the context and contours of access groups. I begin by briefly outlining some of the key factors inhibiting and facilitating disabled people organising as effective political groupings, relating the material to access issues in the built environment. Then, using case studies of two contrasting access groups, the paper explores some of the practical barriers, problems and opportunities connected to disabled people's activities in seeking to influence local authority access policies and practices. I conclude by discussing how some of the wider structural and agency-level constraints on disabled people's political and policy interventions in access issues might be removed.     

Is Partner Violence Worse in the Context of Control?

M. P. Johnson’s (1995) proposal that there are two qualitatively distinct types of intimate partner violence—intimate terrorism and situational couple violence—has been an influential explanation for disparate findings on sex symmetry in domestic violence. This study examines whether this typology increases our ability to explain variations in the negative outcomes of partner violence as compared with the use of a continuous measure of violence. This study also considers whether the use of control to differentiate between types of violence helps to explain the negative consequences of partner violence. The results, based on analyses of data on 4,575 married women from National Violence Against Women survey, indicate mixed support for Johnson’s argument for a qualitative distinction between IT and SCV.     

Making bowels move: Justice without the limits of reason alone

Abstract

This paper responds to the violence inherent in modern ‘formal’ conceptions of justice which sever the ‘cultural’ from the ‘political’. As a counterpoint to this dominant rendering of justice the paper explores an alternate justice whose character is typified by the disposition and exigencies of the viscera.     

Pushing the boundaries of our understanding of disability and violence: voices from the Global South (Guyana)

Our knowledge about disabled people’s lives is largely based on research in the Global North. This article considers disability and violence in the Global South, specifically in Guyana. It aims to push conceptual and empirical boundaries of our understanding of violence and disability. Conceptually, it argues for a social model materialist theory of disability attuned to how material barriers to disabled people’s inclusion in society and space are reproduced through processes of exclusion unfolding across geographic scales ranging from the global, to the inter-personal and intra-personal. It argues that Lacanian psycho-analytic theory provides a complimentary lens for understanding why people engage in acts that construct disabled people as ‘deserving’ of violence. Empirically, the article broadens our understanding of disability and violence by focusing on poverty, violence as a cause of impairment and disability, and disabled women’s and men’s experiences of violence in a majority world context.     

Conceived in violence: enslaved mothers and children born of rape in nineteenth-century Louisiana

ABSTRACT

Through the examination of testimony from formerly enslaved people who had been fathered by white men under slavery, this paper considers how enslaved women negotiated motherhood when their child had been conceived through rape. Evidence reveals that the relationship between enslaved mothers and their children remained strong, despite sexual violence and interference into childrearing by slaveholding families. Informants had close knowledge of the non-consensual nature of their conception, and their willingness to discuss sexual violence reflects the lack of stigma attached to rape victims in the slave community, and hints at the way that enslaved communities coped with sexual violence on an institutional level.     

Overlaps and contradictions between queer theory and disability studies

This paper begins by exploring similarities in the experiences of queers and disabled people, such as familial isolation, high rates of violence, stereotypes and discrimination, and the difficulties associated with passing and coming out. Rejecting pathologization and politicizing access as well as using humor and parody as political tools have been important for both movements. The paper then considers similarities and differences in Queer Theory and Disability Studies as intellectual disciplines, by examining their debt to feminism, their opposition to hegemonic normalcy, their strategic use of universalist and minority discourses, their deconstruction of essentialist identity categories and their use of concepts such as performativity.     

Family violence laws: Traditional narratives and the (in)visibility of lesbian relationships and lesbian-parented families

Abstract

Feminist advocacy and activism over the last 40 years broke historic ground in shining a light on “domestic” or “family” violence, traditionally conceptualized as male violence against female intimate partners and their children. This has resulted in a large body of research, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and similar jurisdictions, around the gendered nature of family violence and violence within heterosexual relationships and heterosexual-parented families. As a consequence, the predominant narrative—in political, policy, and advocacy settings—is largely heteronormative. Less research has focused on family violence in non-heterosexual relationships. The data that do exist have employed different methodological approaches and there are limitations on the extent to which they can be compared to the data on violence within heterosexual relationships. However, the existing research does demonstrate that family violence within lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) communities is a significant issue. Even so, the current narrative does not acknowledge this, and predominantly reflects heterosexual norms of intimate relationships and family structures in society. LGBTI relationships are described as “invisible” in policy and practice responses to family violence, due to the failure to acknowledge violence in such communities. This article explores these claims in relation to lesbian relationships in the context of Australian legislative responses to family violence. It considers the extent to which family violence laws in two Australian jurisdictions recognize and frame lesbian identity in intimate relationships and lesbian-parented families. This is considered in light of the emerging conceptualization of family violence in lesbian relationships and lesbian-parented families, as evidenced by the wider scholarly literature on the nature and dynamics of such violence.     

The stubbornness of science,the arrogance of art

This paper discusses some limitations inherent in the two indispensable tools we use in the practice of psychotherapy, our theoretical understanding of the human personality, and our spontaneous empathic responses to our patients: the science and the art of therapeutic practice. it also considers some extremely important though not at all revolutionary ways in which we can minimize the effect of these limitations that are inherent in our tools.     

Domestic violence and women with disabilities: locating the issue on the periphery of social movements

Women with disabilities, like non‐disabled women, are at risk of experiencing abuse perpetrated by those closest to them. This paper reviews what is known about the domestic abuse of disabled women, explores some of the dynamics of that abuse and considers why this issue has not been high on the agenda of either the movement against domestic violence or the disabled people’s movement in the UK, taking into consideration several points that disabled women have raised. In doing so it focuses on the concept of compound oppressions as a potential explanation for the failure of this problem to have widespread recognition as a social issue.     

En-gendering Civil Society and Democracy-Building: The Anti-Domestic Violence Campaign in Armenia

This article examines how women's non-governmental organizations(NGOs) were targeted as an important component of the democracybuilding and civil society promotion programs of the post-socialistperiod. In particular, it focuses on NGO organizing around theissue of domestic violence in Armenia. It argues that the framingof the problem along with the proposed solutions led to civilsociety resistance to and critique of the anti-domestic violencecampaign. It considers both the causes and the implicationsof this resistance on organizing around domestic violence aswell as the responses and adaptations of the NGOs involved inthe campaign.