"I am not [just] a rabbit who has a bunch of children!": agency in the midst of suffering at the intersections of global inequalities, gendered violence, and migration

Violence Against Women. 2010 Aug;16(8):881-901. doi: 10.1177/1077801210376224.

Abstract

This article is based on an analysis of the life history narrative of Antonia, a Peruvian immigrant in Chile, in the context of ethnographic research on Chilean women's experiences of domestic violence (DV) and the post-dictatorship state's responses to DV. Structural and socio-cultural constraints and forms of violence, including global and local economic inequalities, migration, racism, and intimate, gender-based abuses in both home and receiving countries interact in Antonia's experience to produce suffering and influence a form of gendered agency. This analysis points to the need for research and policies specifically designed to attend to the intersecting vulnerabilities migrant women who suffer DV often face, as well as their agentive acts.

Publication types

  • Case Reports
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Chile
  • Depression
  • Emigrants and Immigrants / psychology*
  • Emigration and Immigration*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Interviews as Topic
  • Male
  • Peru / ethnology
  • Prejudice*
  • Socioeconomic Factors
  • Spouse Abuse / ethnology
  • Spouse Abuse / psychology*
  • Stress, Psychological*