Domestic Violence, Liminality and Precarity in the British Borderlands Polish Women's Experiences of Abuse and Service Engagement in Edinburgh
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Durham E-Theses Domestic Violence, Liminality and Precarity in the British Borderlands Polish women's experiences of abuse and service engagement in Edinburgh JOHNSON, KELLY How to cite: JOHNSON, KELLY (2017) Domestic Violence, Liminality and Precarity in the British Borderlands Polish women's experiences of abuse and service engagement in Edinburgh , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12406/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Domestic Violence, Liminality and Precarity in the British Borderlands Polish women’s experiences of abuse and service engagement in Edinburgh Kelly M. Johnson Abstract Despite extensive attempts to tackle domestic violence, it remains a pervasive, insidious and pertinent issue. This applied anthropological study attends to several unchartered dimensions of domestic violence in a previously unexplored context – namely, Polish migrant women’s experiences of abuse and associated service engagement in the United Kingdom. Research was conducted between 2013 and 2015 via a multi-sited ethnography, across institutions that administered and provided support to women experiencing domestic violence in Edinburgh. Analysis focuses on the significance of political economy in the context of domestic violence, particularly on how political economic practices relating to British statecraft intersected with Polish women’s migrant identities and experiences. Accordingly, this work is foregrounded within an intersectional paradigm of borderlands. This perspective permits this text to demonstrate how markers of difference, engendered by nation states, shaped Polish women’s experiences of abuse and their help-seeking interactions. In constructing this analysis, I draw attention to the salience of political concerns that are not typically included in discussions about domestic violence, and reflect upon their practical, existential and subjective implications. This reveals various ways in which the UK border, ethnic categorisation, and welfare governance intersected with Polish women’s migrant identities, to forge specific domestic violence realities. Throughout my analysis liminality and precarity prove prominent themes, which I argue permeated women’s experiences, their political subjectivities, and ultimately, their ability to achieve safety and protection from abuse. Principally, this work serves to create a critical discourse, highlighting how political economic factors can engender greater marginalisation and risk of domestic violence for Polish women. The research that grounds this thesis is therefore situated in the under-explored field of the anthropology of domestic violence. Through the use of ethnography, this work elucidates Polish women’s lived experiences of domestic violence and service engagement, but also the nature of the British borderlands, in which Polish women are emplaced. In doing so, this thesis illustrates the potential of anthropology for informing understandings of domestic violence, and conversely the possibility of domestic violence research for contributing to perspectives in anthropology. Domestic Violence, Liminality and Precarity in the British Borderlands Polish women’s experiences of abuse and service engagement in Edinburgh Kelly Johnson Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology Durham University 2017 Contents List of Abbreviations………………………………………………………………………………....iv Statement of Copyright……………………………………………………………………………....v Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………….….vi Dedication…………………………………………………………………………………………….vii 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Contextualising Domestic Violence .............................................................................. 1 Selecting the Research Topic ...................................................................................... 5 ‘Problem Statement’ ..................................................................................................... 6 The Conceptual Framing of this Thesis ....................................................................... 8 A Political Economic Approach to Domestic Violence ................................................. 9 Articulating Migrant Intersectionality .......................................................................... 11 Research Questions .................................................................................................. 13 Thesis Overview ........................................................................................................ 13 Situating the Contributions of this Text ...................................................................... 15 2. Domestic Violence, Intersectionality and Anthropology ............................................. 17 Feminism, Domestic Violence and Difference ............................................................... 18 Developing Understandings of Domestic Violence .................................................... 18 Feminist Influences in Policy and Practice ................................................................. 19 Challenges to Mainstream Feminist Discourse .......................................................... 20 Divergence in Domestic Violence: Culture, Ethnicity, Race and Class ...................... 22 Ethnic Minority Women and Domestic Violence Service Engagement ...................... 25 Intersectionality in Theory and in Practice ................................................................. 29 Domestic Violence in Poland and Polish Migrant Service Engagement ........................ 32 Domestic Violence in Poland ..................................................................................... 32 Polish Migrants and Service Engagement in the UK ................................................. 34 Anthropology and Domestic Violence ............................................................................ 38 Anthropological Perspectives on Violence ................................................................. 38 Kinship, Gender and the Family ................................................................................. 39 Political Economic and Legal Anthropology ............................................................... 40 Ethnography and Applied Anthropology .................................................................... 42 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 44 3. Methodology ................................................................................................................... 46 Researching Domestic Violence ................................................................................ 46 An Overview of Methods Used ...................................................................................... 47 Identifying the Topic of this Research ........................................................................ 47 Multi-Sited Ethnography ............................................................................................. 47 The Scope of this Research ....................................................................................... 49 Fieldwork Locations ................................................................................................... 50 Edinburgh: Selecting the Site ..................................................................................... 50 Domestic Violence Organisations .............................................................................. 51 Day-to-Day Ethnography ........................................................................................... 54 Negotiating Consent .................................................................................................. 55 Interviewing Women Who Experienced Domestic Violence ...................................... 55 Minimising Risk and Harm Posed to Participants ...................................................... 57 Conducting Research with Children ........................................................................... 58 Language ................................................................................................................... 58 i Mapping the Third Sector and Interviewing Professionals ......................................... 60 Safer Families’ Respekt Project ................................................................................. 61 The Mechanics of Data Collection and Analysis ........................................................ 62 Including the Experiences of Other European Women .............................................. 63 Applied Feminist Anthropology and Epistemology ........................................................