scholarly journals From the uncertainty of violence to life after abuse: Discursive transitions among female survivors of Intimate Partner Violence in online contexts

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-178
Author(s):  
Alfonso Sánchez-Moya

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is undoubtedly one of the most worrying concerns in today’s global societies. Due to the many intertwined factors that explain the persistence of this reality among people from all sorts of backgrounds, finding a uniform strategy to cope with this social issue is far from unproblematic. In this study, I contribute to a growing field of research that examines the discourse of female survivors of IPV in online contexts. The main objective is to identify relevant linguistic patterns used by women to represent themselves and their perpetrators in a publicly-available online forum. More specifically, I seek to ascertain the discursive traits that characterise women in an initial stage in contrast to a final stage within an abusive relationship. To this end, I adopt a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies approach in a digital corpus of around 136,000 words, which are analysed with the software tool Sketch Engine. Findings show the most salient discursive traits that characterise IPV online discourse. Additionally, and drawing on verb patterns ascertained in the corpus and their semantic categorisation, I also connect linguistic textual evidence to the power imbalances that sustain this social phenomenon.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso Sánchez-Moya

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is undoubtedly one of the most worrying concerns in today’s global societies. Due to the many intertwined factors that explain the persistence of this reality among people from all sorts of backgrounds, finding a uniform strategy to cope with this social issue is far from unproblematic. In this study, I contribute to a growing field of research that examines the discourse of female survivors of IPV in online contexts. The main objective this research pursues is to identify relevant linguistic patterns used by these women to represent themselves and their perpetrators in a publicly-available online forum. More specifically, I seek to ascertain discursive traits that characterise women in an initial stage in contrast to a final stage within an abusive relationship. To this end, I adopt a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies approach (CADS) in a digital corpus of circa 136,000 words, which are analysed with the software tool Sketch Engine (SkE). Findings show the most salient discursive traits that characterise IPV online discourse. Additionally, and drawing from verb patterns and their semantic categorisation, I highlight relevant verbal tendencies that connect linguistic textual evidence that contributes to sustaining the power imbalances that also define this social phenomenon.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (22) ◽  
pp. 215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso Sánchez-Moya

Despite its ubiquity, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is still under-researched from a Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) perspective. Thus, this paper investigates the discourse of women survivors of IPV focusing on a corpus-driven examination of the data. This is done after applying the text-analysis software tool LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) to a 120,000-word corpus collected from an anonymised, public, online forum available to IPV survivors. I contrast a plethora of linguistic phenomena in three online communities embedded within this forum (‘Is it Abuse?’, ‘Getting out’ and ‘Life after abuse’) in the attempt to sketch out how the discursive output varies across these three stages. This paper shows how pronominal distribution plays a role in the forging of collective identity. Differences in the emotional tone across the three explored groups are also identified. Useful though these corpus-driven pointers may be, this study also warns of the precaution with which findings solely deriving from quantitative analyses need to be treated.


2021 ◽  
pp. 152483802110131
Author(s):  
Ilana Seff

In light of the many robust quantitative data sets that include information on attitudes and behaviors related to intimate partner violence (IPV), and in an effort to expand the evidence base around social norms and IPV, many researchers construct proxy measures of norms within and across groups embedded in the data. While this strategy has become increasingly popular, there is no standardized approach for assessing and constructing these norm proxies, and no review of these approaches has been undertaken to date. This study presents the results of a systematic review of methods used to construct quantitative proxy measures for social norms related to IPV. PubMed, Embase, Popline, and Scopus, and PsycINFO were searched using Boolean search techniques. Inclusion criteria comprised studies published since 2000 in English that either (i) examined a norm proxy related to gender or IPV or (ii) analyzed the relationship between a norm proxy and perpetration of, experiences of, or attitudes toward IPV. Studies that employed qualitative methods or that elicited direct measures of descriptive or injunctive norms were not included. Twenty-six studies were eligible for review. Evidence from this review highlights inconsistencies in how proxies are constructed, how they are assessed to ensure valid representation of norms, and how researchers acknowledge their respective method’s limitations. Key processes and reflections employed by some of the studies are identified and recommended for future research inquiries.


2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy C. Chang ◽  
Michele R. Decker ◽  
Kathryn E. Moracco ◽  
Sandra L. Martin ◽  
Ruth Petersen ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Adam M. Messinger ◽  
Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz

Despite the alarming prevalence and consequences of intimate partner violence among transgender people (T-IPV), research, public policy, and service provision remains largely focused on cisgender IPV (C-IPV). Creating tailored societal responses for transgender survivors and abusers entails recognizing not only the similarities but particularly the differences between C-IPV and T-IPV. Research highlights numerous ways in which societal discrimination against transgender people uniquely shapes the causes, abusive tactics, and barriers to escape regarding T-IPV. In this sense, better understanding and addressing T-IPV necessitates acknowledging the extent of anti-transgender discrimination. This opening chapter introduces readers to the pressing issue of T-IPV by defining core terminology, reviewing prevalence estimates and outcomes, detailing the extent of interpersonal transphobia in the world and the dearth of transgender human rights protections, and discussing the many ways in which such discrimination fuels T-IPV. The chapter concludes with an overview of the book.


2019 ◽  
pp. 088626051986969
Author(s):  
Esmeralda R. Garcia ◽  
Jane K. Stoever ◽  
Peiyi Wang ◽  
Ilona S. Yim

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects one in three women and can have long-lasting psychological effects, with abuse survivors typically exhibiting elevated stress and depressive symptoms. However, women with greater personal empowerment resources (i.e., self-care, agency, self-efficacy) and who practice relaxation techniques generally exhibit lower stress and depressive symptoms. The present study investigated the effectiveness of Personal Empowerment Programs (PEP) and practicing relaxation techniques in promoting empowerment and lowering stress and depressive symptoms. Ninety women were recruited from PEP classes conducted at domestic violence agencies in Orange County, California. Salivary cortisol and affect were assessed before and after one PEP class. Perceived stress, depressive symptoms, empowerment, and relaxation techniques were also assessed. Practicing relaxation techniques correlated with more empowerment. For women without sexual abuse experiences only, having completed more classes (>5 classes) in the program was associated with greater empowerment, less stress, and fewer depressive symptoms. Implications extend to future studies and interventions for IPV survivors.


2019 ◽  
Vol 217 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joht Singh Chandan ◽  
Tom Thomas ◽  
Caroline Bradbury-Jones ◽  
Rebecca Russell ◽  
Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay ◽  
...  

BackgroundInternationally, intimate partner violence (IPV) cohorts have demonstrated associations with depression and anxiety. However, this association has not yet been described in a UK population, nor has the association with serious mental illness (SMI).AimsTo explore the relationship between IPV exposure and mental illness in a UK population.MethodWe designed a retrospective cohort study whereby we matched 18 547 women exposed to IPV to 74 188 unexposed women. Outcomes of interest (anxiety, depression and SMI) were identified through clinical codes.ResultsAt baseline, 9174 (49.5%) women in the exposed group had some form of mental illness compared with 17 768 (24.0%) in the unexposed group, described as an adjusted odds ratio of 2.62 (95% CI 2.52–2.72). Excluding those with mental illness at baseline, 1254 exposed women (incidence rate 46.62 per 1000 person-years) went on to present with any type of mental illness compared with 3119 unexposed women (incidence rate 14.93 per 1000 person-years), with an aIRR of 2.77 (95% CI 2.58–2.97). Anxiety (aIRR 1.99, 95% CI 1.80–2.20), depression (aIRR 3.05, 95% CI 2.81–3.31) and SMI (aIRR 3.08, 95% CI 2.19–4.32) were all associated with exposure to IPV.ConclusionsIPV remains a significant public health issue in the UK. We have demonstrated the significant recorded mental health burden associated with IPV in primary care, at both baseline and following exposure. Clinicians must be aware of this association to reduce mental illness diagnostic delay and improve management of psychological outcomes in this group of patients.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 901-921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chulani Kodikara

More than a decade after its passing, Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (PDVA) remains a remedy of last resort for female survivors of intimate partner violence, as there is little support to take on a rights-defined identity as a battered woman both inside and outside the courtroom. However, large numbers of women are accessing the Maintenance Act of 1999 to exit violent relationships without the censure and stigma that attaches to the PDVA. The key to understanding this phenomenon is to consider how familial ideology works in unpredictable ways within the Sri Lankan judicial system. This article examines the reach and different impacts of familial ideology within the judiciary and argues that female survivors of violence navigate this ideology to their own advantage. However, the preference to address violence through the Maintenance Act renders such violence invisible. The price for judicial redress is silence.


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