Contested Concepts in Violence Against Women: ‘Intimate’, ‘Domestic’ or ‘Torture’?

Abstract

Ritualistic, overwhelmingly violent bikie gang or cult-inflicted abuse of women, entrenched by co-opting third party cult or gang members, has been referred to as ‘domestic violence’, ‘intimate violence’ or ‘intimate partner violence’. The present article questions the aptitude of these terms to convey the realities of this violence, in light of the experiences of women attending a South Australian domestic violence service, all of whom were escaping violent partners who were members or associates of bikie gangs and cults. The paper asks, ‘is torture an appropriate term for such violence?’ and discusses the impact of social, legal, organisational and human rights parallel states that collaborate to make it almost impossible for these women to escape this violence and make it difficult for social workers to work effectively with them. The paper concludes that the State needs to adopt a human rights rather than legal focus when addressing the issue of violence against women.     

Global System Theory and ‘Market-friendly’ Religion

This article explores some implications of the interplay of neoliberal economic policy and religion for Leslie Sklair's global system theory (GST), and some implications of Sklair's theory for the study of contemporary religion. We first suggest that Sklair needlessly restricted his theory's scope by analyzing culture in terms of consumerist ideologies without systematic consideration of religious doctrines and practices. Second, based on studies of ‘market Islam’ and our own research on neo-Pentecostal Christianity in Guatemala, we argue that Sklair's notion of a transnational capitalist class is needed for an adequate understanding of the rapid growth of these religious movements. We conclude that GST can benefit from consideration of contemporary religious change, while the study of contemporary religion has perhaps even more to gain from theorizing the influence of transnational elites.     

‘He outfitted his family in notable decency’: Slavery,Honour and Dress in Eighteenth-Century Lima,Peru

For elite Spaniards in eighteenth-century Lima, elegant clothing provided a language for expressing their wealth, status and honour. They frequently made their way around town in the company of elegantly dressed slave attendants, whose presence underscored their owners' privilege. Yet many slaves found opportunities to function as more than mere canvasses for the expression of their owners' identities. Indeed, for a surprising number of slaves, elegant clothing was a key tool with which they negotiated their status and laid claim to their own definitions of honour. By mapping the study of material culture onto the study of slavery, this paper brings into relief the social meanings that clothing contained for slaves, and highlights the possibilities that urban life contained for the creation of social identities that fell outside the social and colour lines drawn by the colonial state.¹     

From Policy to Practice: Exploring Practitioners’ Perspectives on Social Enterprise Policy Claims

While there has been significant academic focus on social enterprise policy for a number of years now, the links between policy and the practice of social enterprise have received comparatively less attention. Scotland is recognised as having a particularly supportive environment for social enterprise; the Scottish Government has publicly endorsed social enterprise and made considerable investment into the sector. Based upon an in-depth qualitative analysis of the perceptions of social enterprise practitioners and stakeholders across Scotland, we explore whether the rhetoric of support matches practitioners experience of ‘doing’ social enterprise. Reviewing emerging issues and reflecting upon the complex nature of the Scottish context, including in relation to welfare reform, we find that in contrast to the claims of politicians, the attitude of local authorities in Scotland, coupled with a lack of understanding of the needs and requirements of social enterprise at the local authority level, has led to a rather more ‘patchwork’ picture than the rhetoric would seem to suggest. While some local authorities recognise the potential of social enterprise for their local economies and privilege and encourage cooperation, others are less inclined to openly support social enterprise, particularly those that are small in scale. Underpinning these contentions, we argue, are unrealistic expectations about the prospects of social enterprises being able to become ‘sustainable’, and how this could be achieved.     

Questioning Research with Children: Discrepancy between Theory and Practice?

This paper argues that current child and childhood research is problematical in as much as there is a discrepancy between theory and research practice. Although in theory, children are conceptualised as active agents in the social world, the type of research that children are typically involved in implies that children are competent, knowledgeable and affective only in terms of their own lives, their own spaces, their own childhoods. The implications of this discrepancy are discussed. The paper concludes that although research that contributes to a greater understanding of childhood experiences is important, it is equally important to involve children in research that goes beyond 'childhood'.     

Promoting ‘Healthy Childhoods’ and Keeping Children ‘At Home’: Beninese Anti-Trafficking Policy in Times of Neoliberalism

This article offers the first examination of its kind of the content and nature of anti-trafficking policy as it is pursued in Benin. The article draws on data gathered from policy and project documents and from interviews and participant observation with actors integral to the constitution of policy in (and with influence over) the Beninese anti-trafficking community. It attempts to bridge the oft-lamented gap between page and practice by conducting analysis not only of the representation of policy in text, but also of its lived manifestations in processes, interactions and structures. It argues that the various different actors that comprise Benin's anti-trafficking pantheon seek to accomplish one fundamental goal – to protect children from trafficking – through two overarching strategies – the promotion of ‘healthy’ childhoods and the pre-emptive prevention of child movement. The article examines each of the main strands of policy and concludes by offering a Foucauldian analysis of their operation. It thus fills a major gap in the academic understanding of anti-trafficking policy in the Beninese context.     

Failing ‘Abyan’, ‘Golestan’ and ‘the Estonian Mother’: Refugee Women,Reproductive Coercion and the Australian State

Abstract

In September and October 2015, the story of detained Somali refugee ‘Abyan’ unfolded in the Australian media. A victim of rape on Nauru and seeking an abortion that could not be obtained on the island nation, Abyan was escorted to Sydney where she was to attend an abortion clinic. She was ultimately returned to Nauru without having had an abortion. This paper situates Abyan’s story alongside other stories from Nauru and in a longer history of reproductive coercion in Australian Immigration Department accommodation since the Second World War.     

Traditional,Problem-Solving and Critical Theory: An Analysis of Horkheimer and Cox's Setting of the ‘Critical’ Divide

Abstract

Robert W. Cox's dictum that ‘(t)heory is for someone and for some purpose’ (emphasis in the original) is said to be the most-quoted line in International Relations (IR) theory. Yet whilst this spurred a revolution in critical thinking in IR, it echoed a far older conception of Critical Theory advanced by Max Horkheimer in the 1930s that claimed there is ‘no theory of society?…?that does not contain political motivations'. Both sentiments emphasize the relation between knowledge and human interests, and yet both formulate two distinct—though allied—ways of approaching ‘critical’ theorizing. In order to understand the similarities and differences in their approaches, this paper draws out three loci of difference between Cox and Horkheimer regarding the question of emancipation: (i) the epistemological relation between ‘critical’ and ‘Problem-Solving’ (Cox) or ‘Traditional Theory’ (Horkheimer); (ii) the emphasis placed on transformation and historical process; and (iii) the importance of intersubjectivity in how each approach emancipation. It is argued that by actively combining critical (dialectical) approaches across the social sciences, broadening human agency through civilizational dialogue, and retaining a commitment to emancipatory (and visionary) political futures based on human association, that Critical International Theory can maintain ongoing relevance in IR.     

Researchers Behind Policy Development: Comparing ‘Age-Friendly Cities’ Models in Quebec and Wallonia

Based on a reflexive method, this article explores the roles of researchers behind Age-Friendly Cities and Environments. Referring to Michael Burawoy's division of sociological work (professional, critical, policy and public sociology), it is structured around the international comparison of two empirical case studies: Walloon region (Belgium) and Quebec (a province of Canada). While the first case shows some difficulties faced by a limited policy sociology perspective with little room for research, the latter presents a more developed public sociology approach with larger involvement from research. If both cases started with policy links, the latter presents a special interest for praxis, through knowledge transfer as an ongoing public dialogue. Based on this comparison, the article concludes with a twofold use of praxis: on one side – knowledge in action – a public sociology position offers an original perspective on what AFC/AFE may mean and produce to avoid a limited field of actions focusing only on some stakeholders or advocates for older people. On the other side – action in knowledge – policy and public sociology question professional and critical sociology facing AFC/AFE programmes: is a purely academic knowledge of such a programme epistemologically realistic or should it necessarily be empirically fuelled?     

‘She Knew What was Coming’: Knowledge and Domestic Violence in Social Work Education

Social Work educators are aware that within any class of social work students there are likely to be students with first-hand experience of domestic violence. The Writing Stories project was designed to engage students with social policy learning using experiential accounts. An unintended outcome of the project was the disclosure of students' experience of domestic violence. The accounts of violence offer an interesting juxtaposition with the formalised academic story of violence. This paper, by drawing on the concept of banality, aims to uncover how knowledge is presented in those stories and what challenges this may pose for educators. Feminist research highlights the need for researchers to enable women to tell their stories. Social work values also stress that service-user experience should be central to theorising and knowledge production. However, within an educational relationship these stories also need to be examined for how they can both provide a basis for knowledge and compete with, clash or resist other forms of knowledge. The key argument is that neither the formal, academic forms of knowledge, nor the experiential should be privileged. Instead, it is by working across a spectrum of epistemological methods that practice is best contextualised.     

The ‘compliant’, the ‘pacified’ and the ‘rebel’: experiences with Swiss disability insurance

Switzerland’s social policies in the field of disability have been significantly reshaped over the last two decades by reducing the number of allowances awarded and by increasing the recourse to vocational rehabilitation measures. What stances do individuals who experience the implementation of these policies adopt? What kind of tests are they subjected to? How can we explain the posture they adopt – be it ‘compliant’, ‘pacified’ or ‘rebellious’ – when facing the (re)assignations of their identity and professional status? Drawing on interviews conducted with individuals who have recently been involved in programmes set up by Swiss disability insurance, we highlight their uncertainties and concerns relating to their place in society, as well as their reactions to disability insurance’s interventions.     

The making of Jamaica’s ‘National Policy for Persons with Disabilities 2000’: macro,meso and micro factors

This paper summarises the findings of my doctoral thesis on the development of Jamaica’s first rights‐based disability policy: The National Policy for Persons with Disabilities 2000. The research had two main aims. First through conducting a retrospective case study, was to construct a history of the national policy’s development, which was made possible by a series of events. Second, was to explore through using Easton’s thesis, that policy is developed within an extra‐ and intra‐ societal environment in order to investigate how macro, meso and micro factors have influenced the policy‐making process. The thesis synthesises Easton’s systems approach to policy‐making with Lasswell’s classic stagist approach as a tool for discussing the policy‐making process in Jamaica. I argue that a combination of macro, meso and micro factors created an ‘opportunity’ for the national policy’s development, which represents a paradigm shift in Jamaican disability policy.     

The ‘New Institutionalism’ in Organization Theory: Bringing Society and Culture Back In

This investigation will discuss the emergence of an economistical perspective among the dominant approaches of organization theory in the United States since the inception of “organization studies” as an academic discipline. It maintains that Contingency theory, Resource Dependency theory, Population Ecology theory, and Transaction Cost theory analyze predominantly for-profit organizations within the context of the current economic environment. It further holds that the political and cultural environments, as well as the role of communities, are widely neglected by the economistical perspective. The New Institutionalism departs from this line of thinking and offers an implicit critique. With this focus, this article addresses a sociology of knowledge theme and aims to account for this theoretical limitation by drawing on social developments in the American economy, in American politics, and in the academy. Finally, this study argues that the economization of organization studies is strongly supported by the increasing proliferation of American business schools. Here the science of organization studies has found its new institutional home.     

Rowing ‘at home’ and ‘away’: sport,heritage and identity in the Malay world

This paper is grounded in a comparison of the cultural identifications that accompany Sambas Malays’ participation in rowing competitions ‘at home’ and ‘away’. Sambas Malays are Indonesian citizens from the regency of Sambas, who ethnically identify as Malay. There, rowing competitions provide the sociocultural infrastructure for developing local and translocal cultural identifications. Two related, yet distinguishable, cultural identifications are evident, each associated with a specific rowing infrastructure. When contests occur ‘at home’, rowing is steeped in local Sambas Malay culture and heritage. However, contests ‘away’, in areas loosely identified as ‘Malay’, generate identifications with a regionally based Malay culture and consociality. Utilizing a non-positivistic conceptualization of ‘border’, this paper considers the intersection of culture, politics, economy, geography and mobility in everyday bordering practices producing two overlapping cultural identifications.     

Photo‐elicitation and the agricultural landscape: ‘seeing’ and ‘telling’ about farming,community and place

This paper explores a photo‐elicitation study with farmers in the steeply degraded hill country of south‐eastern Australia. The photographers are the participating family farmers in the study. Their efforts to explain and to change their farming practice are linked to their relationship to the landscape, to the local Landcare conservation groups and to the imperatives of contemporary production systems. Their use of their landscape images is deliberate. They send a message to others about the complexity of being a ‘farmer’, a land manager and a conservationist. The photo‐elicitation process empowers them to articulate closely held values and understandings about their lives and work in this difficult terrain.