The relational construction of woman abuse : narratives of gender, subjectivity and violence in South Africa

Includes bibliographical references (p. 204-226).This study examined how women and men in intimate heterosexual relationships attribute meaning to the man's perpetration of violence against a woman partner. Narrative interviews were conducted with women and men who constituted 15 heterosexual couples (30 individual women and men). Narrative analytical methods, informed by feminist poststructuralism, revealed that participants located themselves within multiple and ambiguous gendered subject positions. In their talk about violence and relationships, women and men 'performed' gender and enacted diverse culturally available constructions of femininity and masculinity. The analysis also showed that participants' talk about violence was embedded in broader sociocultural mechanisms that construct woman abuse as a serious social problem in South Africa. Within-case and across-case narrative analytical methods revealed that couples' narratives were either constructed collaboratively or incongruently across partners. In collaborative narratives, couples' stories were congruent in terms of their content, structure and aims, for example, explaining the ending of the marriage. Incongruent narratives, on the other hand, were characterised by major disconnections in the content and function. It was concluded that, although presumptions about homogeneity prevail, greater sensitivity to heterogeneity amongst victims, perpetrators and couples is appropriate. This study provides insight into the dynamics of abusive relationships as well as a basis for suggestions about interventions for perpetrators and victims of woman abuse

“I’m here for abusing my wife”: South African men constructing intersectional subjectivities through narratives of their violence

The paper aims to explore the subjectivities men construct in their talk about their own violence toward women partners and the meaning these understandings of their violence have for the intervention programmes they attend. We take an intersectional reading of marginalised men’s narratives of their perpetration of violence against intimate women partners. Drawing on interviews with 26 participants who had been mandated into criminal justice intervention programmes in Cape Town, we attend to how their race, class, gender and location intersect to shape their understanding of their violence. We also analyse the implications that this wide-angle reading of men and their violence has for intervention programmes that mostly have been imported from Euro-American contexts. The paper offers a critique of current intervention practices with domestically violent men that focuses too heavily on gendered power alone. Furthermore, it suggests that an intersectional reading of the multiple realities of men’s lives is important for interventions that aim to end their violence against women, particularly for marginalised men who have little stake in the ‘patriarchal ’dividend’.Keywords: batterer interventions, intersectionality, intimate partner violence, narrative, domestic violenc

Communicating About Sexual Violence on Campus: A University Case Study

South African universities are in the midst of highly visible struggles around decolonisation. Over the past two years, these struggles have  foregrounded racialised, classed, gendered and other forms of exclusion. These are being challenged both by black academic staff as well as by black students. Most visibly and deeply connected, have been the challenges to the ways in which universities, as particular types of institutions, have dealt with sexual violence and harassment of its womxn1 students. In this context we ask how the University of Cape Town, as one particular case study formally communicates about sexual violence on its campus. In an archival analysis of the university’s public communications on sexual violence during 2015 and 2016, we ask what kinds of messages it conveys about violence, victims and perpetrators. We are interested in the ways in which the university positions itself in relation to the issue of sexual violence. The paper finds that the university’s institutional discourse on sexual violence produces and reproduces some of the same discourses on sexual violence in both the public and media more broadly

“Out of Africa”: Racist discourse in men’s talk on sex work

Sex work remains highly stigmatised throughout the world. This is particularly true in South Africa, where legal, academic, and popular discourses continue to construct sex workers and their clients as responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS, thereby exacerbating the public panic and stigma related to sex work. Through the lenses of feminist decolonial and queer theories, this paper explores how male clients manage the stigma associated with the purchase of sex and how they negotiate their gendered identities by enlisting discourses of race and class. Drawing on excerpts from in-depth interviews with 43 men who identify as clients of women sex workers, we show how men evoked racist colonial tropes to construct the black body as lower class, dirty and diseased. We argue that this denigration of the black Other allowed men to construct their own masculine identities favourably. To conclude, we reflect upon how legislation that criminalises sex work in South Africa operates in tandem with structural inequalities and racist ideologies to maintain and perpetuate the stigmatisation of the black body, particularly the black woman sex worker

Psychology and Society in Dialogue with Decolonial Feminisms: Perspectives from the global south, Volume 1

In the call for this special issue we, incoming editors of PINS, expressed the desire to build on the fast-growing legacy and genesis of decoloniality through encouraging and amplifying the most marginalised perspectives and approaches within contemporary decolonial trends. There are a range of reasons why this current moment of decoloniality has energetically re-emerged and taken hold in knowledge production and activist efforts globally. Foremost amongst these reasons is the fact that global inequalities that are racialized, gendered, spatial and classed are rising; and past injustices, and historical and collective traumas, are either completely erased or silenced. Calls for decoloniality have taken hold in the context of ongoing racialized, patriarchal, heterosexist and structural violence

Challenging Ciscentric Feminist Margins: A South African Study on Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Black Trans Women

Feminist discourses around the scourge of gender-based violence (GBV) have historically prioritized the voices and contextualities of cisgender heterosexual women, often to the exclusion of trans persons. In light of the continual invisibility of black trans persons and in particular black trans women in anti-GBV activism, this paper explores black trans women’s experiences of violence in post-apartheid South Africa. The study was undertaken from a transfeminist framework that asserts that the stories and histories of trans persons are central to the development of trans epistemologies within an inclusive gender liberation framework. The study followed anarrative methodological approach. Unstructured individual interviews were conducted with eight black trans women living in South Africa. Narratives of gender policing and punitive sexual violence in addition to narratives of cissexism as well as of the paradoxical hypervisibility and invisibility of black trans positions revealed violence meted against black trans women in South Africa as structural, grounded on a patriarchal matrix of cisgender power representing trans women as devalued others. Apartheid legacies of racialisedeconomic marginalisation manifest as bearing a strong mediating role in shaping black trans women’s sustained vulnerability to violence. By addressing anti-trans violence as a feminist concern, this paper disrupts the ciscentricism of feminism, enabling more nuanced and inclusive constructions of GBV

Narrating the Intersectionalities of Gender Violence: Editorial

The telling, sharing and, most critically, the hearing of stories related to gender violence has been a critical part of the project of feminism as well as the refuge movement (Dobash and Dobash 1979, Kelly 1988). This an introduction to a set of papers that represent highlights from the conference entitled &ldquo;International Congress on Gender Violence: Intersectionalities&rdquo; in terms of how the intersections of gender violence have been narrated. Contar, compartir, y, m&aacute;s cr&iacute;ticamente, escuchar historias relacionadas con la violencia de g&eacute;nero ha sido una parte fundamental del proyecto del feminismo, as&iacute; como del movimiento de refugio (Dobash y Dobash 1979, Kelly 1988). Esta es una introducci&oacute;n a una serie de art&iacute;culos representativos del Congreso Internacional sobre Violencia de G&eacute;nero: Intersecciones, que abordan c&oacute;mo se han relatado las intersecciones de la violencia de g&eacute;nero. DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2710203</p

Editorial

PINS editoria

Woman abuse : the construction of gender in women and men's narratives of violence

Violence against women is a widespread social problem affecting millions of women. For more than three decades, researchers have explored the experiences of women in abusive relationships. Victims’ accounts have been the main focus, often deflecting attention away from men who are most frequently the perpetrators. Consequently, woman abuse has come to be regarded as a ‘woman’s problem’ – blaming women and rendering them responsible for change. The literature on perpetrators and victims of violence seems to be developing independently of each other and commonly provide one-sided accounts (mostly from victims and less often from perpetrators). This article reports on an ongoing research project that aims to explore how both partners in a violent heterosexual relationship understand and attach meanings to their experiences. In-depth interviews were conducted with five couples. An analysis of the narratives revealed that women's and men’s understandings of violence are both similar and different. They construct particular forms of gendered identities, which are sometimes contradictory and ambiguous. In their talk about violence and relationships, they ‘perform’ gender and enact hegemonic constructions of femininity and masculinity. The analysis also shows that women’s and men’s talk about violence is linked to broader socio-cultural mechanisms that construct woman abuse as a serious social problem in South Africa.This article was written by Prof Cheryl de la Rey before she joined the University of Pretoria