Who Owns Domestic Abuse?: The Local Politics of a Social Problem PDF
Preview Who Owns Domestic Abuse?: The Local Politics of a Social Problem
WHO OWNS DOMESTIC ABUSE? The Local Politics of a Social Problem With the knowledge and sensitivity of a teacher and counsellor, Ruth M. Mann details a community effort to establish a shelter for abused women in a small Ontario municipality. While other literature presents the ostensibly cohesive views of particular interest groups on the issue of domestic violence, Mann exposes the conflicts that actually occur, and the ways these conflicts fuel unintended outcomes. In Who Owns Domestic Abuse? The Local Politics of a Social Problem, the author ven- tures bravely into the politically charged debate over the definition of abuse, and demonstrates that 'owning' a problem does not ensure viable solutions. Rather than promoting a particular response to such problems, Mann uses personal accounts of abuse to make a space for the diverse perspectives of abused women and abusive men. She urges activists and intervenors to argue less and listen more. RUTH M. MANN is a sociologist at Concordia University, and has worked as a group facilitator in abuse intervention programs for domestically assaultive men, and in a 'challenge of anger' program for women. She is currently conducting research on interventions for vio- lent girls. This page intentionally left blank Who Owns Domestic Abuse? The Local Politics of a Social Problem Ruth M. Mann UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2000 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-4248-1 (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-8091-X (paper) © Printed on acid-free paper Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Mann, Ruth M. (Ruth Marie), 1947- Who owns domestic abuse? : the local politics of a social problem Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-4248-1 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-8091-X (pbk.) 1. Women's shelters - Political aspects - Ontario - Case studies. 2. Women - Abuse of - Ontario. 3. Abused women - Housing - Ontario. I. Title. HV1448.C32O581999 362.82'9283 C99-931874-8 University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). Canada This book is dedicated to the women and men of the research commu- nity who shared their personal, political, and professional struggles and stories - especially to the individuals referred to in the text as Lisa, Bob, Kathryn, Peter, Charles, Susan, Julia, Jim, and Jocelyn. These core respondents were residents of the housing co-operative that befriended and sheltered me, and that introduced me to the larger community of domestic abuse activists, abuse intervention profession- als, and residents. This page intentionally left blank Contents PREFACE IX ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii ACRONYMS XV 1 Theoretical and Political Contexts 3 Introductory statement. Discussion of 'strict constructionist' and 'contextual constructionist' approaches to the study of social prob- lems, feminist and non-feminist constructions of abuse, and post- modern and modern approaches to research and writing. Discussion of the relevance of these to the study. 2 The Study, the Community, and 'The Problem' 19 Overview of the research process. Identification of tensions between community development and feminist approaches to abuse inter- vention. Description of the community based on media images, agency literature, and official statistics. Discussion of general resi- dents' abuse-related experiences and attitudes, based on a random- sample telephone survey. 3 Mobilization of Action: Struggles for Control 39 Description of the politics of the shelter development process, based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with activists, professionals, and survivors. 4 Implementation of a Plan of Action: Struggles with Control 67 Description of polarizations within the shelter during the first six viii Contents months of shelter operation, based on in-depth interviews. Discus- sion of similar developments at the established Regional shelter, and at shelters generally. 5 Counselling and Therapeutic Intervenors 89 Description of the practices and perspectives of pro-feminist and tra- ditional therapeutic abuse counsellors involved in, or publicly sup- portive of, the shelter initiative, based on in-depth interviews. 6 Enforcement, Legal, and Medical Intervenors 113 Description of the practices and perspectives of pro-feminist and mainstream law enforcement, legal, and medical professionals involved in or publicly supportive of the shelter initiative, based on in-depth interviews. 7 Victims, Perpetrators, and Survivors 133 Description of the lived experience of abuse as glimpsed through the accounts of women and men who identified themselves as current or previous abuse intervention clients, based on in-depth interviews. 8 A Researcher's Construction of 'The Problem': Conclusion 197 A dialectical portrait of abuse as political process and lived experi- ence, based on the research process. Discussion of the implications of the study to theorizing on social problems processes, and social policy. APPENDICES: THE RESEARCH PROCESS 209 TABLES: SUMMARIES OF DEMOGRAPHIC AND SURVEY DATA 227 NOTES 263 BIBLIOGRAPHY 283 AUTHOR INDEX 305 SUBJECT INDEX 311 Preface Who Owns Domestic Abuse? The Local Politics of a Social Problem is a case study of community activism around domestic violence against women and children in a small-town Southern Ontario municipality, analysed from a sociology of social problems perspective that Joel Best termed contextual constructionism (Best, 1989, 1993). My primary focus is activities associated with attempts to assert, resist, and main- tain ownership over the establishment and operation of a shelter for women, and the unintended outcomes of these ownership struggles. I address the lived reality of abuse as a contextual or background feature of this public activity. The study is relevant to social theory and social policy. On the level of social theory, I address the subjective/objective dualism of defini- tional processes and experiential realities. My approach is informed by constructionist insights, especially by postmodern concerns with the ways social power and social interests influence knowledge, and the social production of knowledge. Nevertheless, it is grounded in what is essentially a mainstream or 'modernist' approach to research and analysis. As outlined by Herbert Blumer in Symbolic Interactionism, Per- spective and Method (1969), this approach presupposes both the exist- ence of an empirical social world that stands over and against the observer, and the contingent validity of social scientific knowledge of this world. Consequently, in contradistinction to 'strict' construction- ists who regard investigations of conditions as irrelevant to the devel- opment of theoretical knowledge of social problems processes, I argue that an analysis of tensions between conditions and the politicized con- structions of conditions promoted during social problems mobiliza- tions informs theoretical understandings of the little-explored issue of
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