“Love the kin you’re in?”: Kin network responses to women and children experiencing intimate partner violence

• Intimate partner violence is often known to a wider social network. Still little research exists on the experiences of social networks, how they respond and how women and children experiencing intimate partner violence perceive these responses. This article draws on 16 qualitative interviews with women victims of intimate partner violence, intimate partner violence-exposed children and their relatives in three kin networks. The overall aim of this article is to study responses to intimate partner violence from a multivocal perspective where the possibly concurring and conflicting perspectives of both the victims and the networks are heard. More specifically, the article explores what responses are perceived as possible/impossible to end violence and create safety for women and children. The article shows how masculinity, in intersection with kin position and age, figures both as an obstacle and a possibility to end intimate partner violence. Moreover, the article shows that responses are shaped from intersections of age, kin and gender in victims, more specifically understandings of maturity and adulthood of female victims and how this linked to responsible motherhood. The study provided insights into responses to intimate partner violence as co-constructed in a wider social network and how a focus on multivocality may be useful for understanding the multidimensional character of responses to intimate partner violence.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Work (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialpsykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Psychology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

intimate partner violence

domestic violence

responses

social networks

children exposed to violence

gender relations

social support

masculinity

genusvetenskap

Gender Studies

Social Work

socialt arbete

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)