Intimate partner homicides in a process perspective

• Intimate partner homicides in a process perspective Introduction In their pivotal work on men who murder women, Dobash & Dobash (2014) write about the project that changes: from trying to keep the woman in the relationship and/or under his control to deciding to kill her, as punishment, when he realizes that this can (no longer) be attained. This was a point of departure for this study, in which we aimed to describe what this process entails. Methods The study presented is part of the STOP study, which aims to map and describe all intimate partner homicides perpetrated in West Sweden 2000-2016. In this qualitative study, 50 court files with 40 male and 10 female perpetrators were analyzed using thematic analysis. The research questions guiding our research were: When does the project change? What does the buil-up for the killing entail? and finally What does the aftermath of the deadly violence look like? Our rationale for focusing on IPH a process perspective was that many risk factors for IPH have been described in previous research, but it may be difficult put these into context. In many cases, several risk factors can be found; but which are most pertinent of the time of the crime? Further we sought to analyze in what way women’s changing of the project, i.e. deciding to kill their partners, are different from or similar to men´s. Results We discerned a process in which the borders between charging up to kill, and actually making this decision, were blurry. Yet some distinctive features of this process were visible. Further we found that possessiveness was a more prominent theme when the perpetrators were male. Conclusion A process perspective is valuable in understanding IPHs.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Annan medicin och hälsovetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Other Medical and Health Sciences (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

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

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)