Key Triggers of domestic violence in Ghana: A victim centered analysis

Background: Prominent among the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the determination to put an end to all forms of discrimination against women and girls. Unfortunately, domestic and intimate partner violence constitute enduring and particularly traumatizing forms of gendered violence.Objective: In order to effectively address this crisis, it is important that this study investigates and identifies some key triggers of domestic violence in Accra, Ghana through the situational perspective of female victims.Methods: Using a survey research design, 385 questionnaires were administered with a 64.7 percent return rate, and in-depth interviews were conducted with willing female victims of domestic abuse.Results: The study identified alcoholism, patriarchal social structures, financial subjugation and male response to women’s growing economic independence as key triggers of domestic violence.Conclusion: It suggests the need for a focused interrogation of the changing causes, impact and policy implications of intimate partner and domestic violence

NARRATIVES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVORS IN GHANA AND THE UNITED STATES

The exponential increase in domestic violence is a global crisis that is pertinent to the struggle to protect women’s rights. This problem does not only affect women (and children) in the global south but also in the global north. Interestingly, the United States, often referred to as a global super power is not immune to the epidemic of domestic violence. Academic discourses have historically tended to emphasize the presentation of statistics or discussions of international interventions and humanitarian responses. An area that seems to have been neglected, particularly in political science writing, is that of the personal narratives of domestic violence survivors. This article therefore presents a documentation and analysis of selected narratives of survivors, and their experiences of domestic violence in both Ghana and the United States. By unpackaging some critical commonalities in these experiences, the paper will thus investigate the extent to which the escalation of violence at the household level continues to be driven and affected by cultural and patriarchal norms. It also examines the extent to which these norms negate the effectiveness of international regimes that seek to address domestic violence. The paper adopts radical feminist theory as a framework. It argues that despite a range of efforts to address the problem, diverse cultural and patriarchal norms appear to intensify the tendency to view domestic violence as a private matter that could bring about stigmatization for the women if disclosed to the public. In resistance to that trend, the paper draws on the use of narrative analysis as a powerful tool of highlighting the importance of women’s voices in their struggle against silencing, marginalization and abuse. It contends that the struggle to educate women on their rights can only begin when women begin to see themselves not as recipients but as creators and owners of culture

A FRACTURED EXISTENCE: GENDER POLICY IMPLEMENTATION AND THE CULTURE OF PATRIARCHY IN NIGERIA'S TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

In response to the call for the attainment of a gender sensitive and responsive society for sustainable development, tertiary institutions have embarked on a drive to bridge existing gender gaps in knowledge production and consumption. With the active involvement of feminist scholars and gender experts, the tertiary institution’s traditional structure which was male-centered and had women at a disadvantage is being continually and consciously questioned. The Nigerian tertiary education system has undergone several modifications as numerous reforms are made to ensure the reduction of gender disparities in the institutions. Prominent among these reforms is the ongoing formulation and implementation of institutional gender policies with specific reference to the adoption of the National Gender Policy in 2006 by the Nigerian government. While it is commendable that these institutional policies have opened up opportunities for gender equality among the students and faculty, it has also been argued that the tertiary system is yet to achieve a full transformation because of the continuing presence of the conjoined twins; culture and patriarchy. The disparities still present in gender roles in these institutions stem from patriarchal structures and cultural traditions that emphasize male dominance in all facets of the society. This has led to a clear disregard of women’s rights, abilities, and entitlements. This paper critiques the actual implementation of the institutional gender policy and the specific cultural and patriarchal legacies embedded in the Nigerian environment. Through the extant review of literature, the study deploys radical feminist theorizing in exploring the stalled implementation of gender equality policies in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions. It argues that despite the numerical strength of female students and faculty, they remain subject to various forms of violence and silencing due to the invidious interplay of culture and patriarchy within the society

Postcolonial Angst and the Nigerian scholarly estate

Praised for their courageous stance against the violation of voice, rights and freedoms by the state and against the economic encroachment of international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, universities in many African countries have achieved an enviable national visibility, exceeding by far the socio-political prominence of their counterparts in more industrialized societies. Yet even as they have received approbation for their role in resisting oppression and state terrorism, the academy and its most prominent intellectuals have often been publicly reviled as the acquiescent apparatus of repressive regimes. Within the unfolding polit ical development of African societies, the university has served conflicting functions of legitimization, resistance and social reproductions that have corresponded to the ambivalence of identity of its most critical forces: scholars, students and their unions. This paper explores the conflicted sense of role and identity apparent in Nigerian universities and the socio-political arenas within which such conflicts are being negotiated. While the literature suggests that the role played by scholars in popular resistance to the oppressive state has engendered an erosion of the town and gown complex, I argue here that this is a misleading understanding of the realities in Nigeria and in countries with similar trajectories. © 2005 by Association of Third World Studies, Inc

Emergent Discourses of Audacity and the Revocation of Marginality

This article is based on Professor Soyinka-Airewele\u27s Presidential Address delivered at the 27th Annual International Conference of the Association of Third World Studies, on November 23rd, 2009, University of Cape Coast/Elmina Beach Resort, Ghana

When neutrality is taboo. Navigating institutional identity in protracted conflict settings - The Nigerian Ife/Modakeke case

This paper explores the means by which social institutions located in African communities that are deeply and violently polarized along ethnic-related lines, navigate the institutional role and identity within such a local environment. Utilizing a case study of ethno-political conflict in the Ile-Ife and Modakeke communities of South Western Nigeria, the paper investigates how the local academy has sought to survive as a zone of diversities located in host cit(ies) with rigidly structured mythicohistories and conflicting geopolitical claims. Through this exploration of the paradox of the uneasy cohabitation of contested realities and the quest for post war healing and rehabilitation, the paper unveils the unusual local interpretation, rejection and reconstruction of the concept of neutrality, and highlights the challenges, both philosophical and concrete, which confront the academy. The findings of the study suggest a need to cautiously, but decidedly, resituate the university as a civically engaged arena for the creative re-envisioning of diversity and cultural pluralism and ultimately for local and national conflict transformation in Nigeria

When Neutrality is Taboo. Navigating Institutional Identity in Protracted Conflict Settings - the Nigerian Ife/Modakeke Case.

This paper explores the means by which social institutions located in African communities that are deeply and violently polarized along ethnic-related lines, navigate the institutional role and identity within such a local environment. Utilizing a case study of ethno-political conflict in the Ile-Ife and Modakeke communities of South Western Nigeria, the paper investigates how the local academy has sought to survive as a zone of diversities located in host cit(ies) with rigidly structured mythicohistories and conflicting geopolitical claims. Through this exploration of the paradox of the uneasy cohabitation of contested realities and the quest for postwar healing and rehabilitation, the paper unveils the unusual local interpretation, rejection and reconstruction of the concept of neutrality, and highlights the challenges, both philosophical and concrete, which confront the academy. The findings of the study suggest a need to cautiously, but decidedly, resituate the university as a civicly engaged arena for the creative re-envisioning of diversity and cultural pluralism and ultimately for local and national conflict transformation in Nigeri