Shifting the Center: Relocating Refugee Men in Strategies Aiming to Address Violence Against Women

Maturi, Jenny

doi:10.1177/10778012221101918

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…The "new emergent problem" that this worker talked about referred to the challenges that refugee resettlement in a new country can bring, such as loss of culture, changing gendered norms, and other challenges in settlement such as unemployment and language barriers. As I have discussed in greater detail in Maturi (2023), communities struggling with changing gendered norms and the effects of the refugee journey were identified by workers as causing a backlash to gender equality and diminishing efforts aimed at women's empowerment.…”

Section: Competing Priorities = Barriers To Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As discussed already, these might include poverty, homelessness, barriers to accessing services or coercive practices by the state and organizations. As I introduced earlier, racism was also discussed as diminishing women's empowerment, contributing to a backlash to gender equality in refugee communities (Maturi, 2023). Kinship ties to family and community were often problematized as putting women at greater risk of violence outside of interpersonal relationships.…”

Section: Community As a Source Of Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Revisiting Empowerment Through Critical Praxis: Perspectives of Front-Line Workers Supporting Refugee Women Experiencing Gendered Violence in Australia

Maturi

2023

Affilia

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This article revisits the concept of empowerment that has underpinned the global movement to address gendered violence. Using a critical praxis lens, the article explores different understandings of empowerment that arose in interviews with front-line domestic violence workers who support refugee and migrant women experiencing gendered violence in Queensland, Australia. Two-thirds of the participants are from refugee and migrant backgrounds themselves. The findings reflect the shift in the service sector from more macro understandings of empowerment, grounded in feminist activism, to more micro understandings. In a context of neoliberal, bureaucratic service delivery, and limited means to address gendered violence that focus on women leaving and legal interventions, empowerment is sometimes viewed in individualistic, therapeutic terms of self-help. There is evidence that domestic violence services, founded on theories of empowerment, are now implicated in the surveillance and risk tracking role of social work as a profession, which has implications for survivor centeredness, agency, and equal participation. However, there is also evidence that front-line workers are aware of structural failings and questioning individualistic conceptions of empowerment amid broader concerns of social justice. Empowerment is viewed as transformative, with possibilities for more collective models aimed at addressing social justice. Outlining implications for feminist scholarship and practice, I suggest empowerment might be revisited by considering the differences between and within groups; structural violence and the consequences of interventions for marginalized groups; collective strategies aimed at broader structural change, such as poverty and race; and by strengthening the capacity of communities to respond to violence.

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Section: Competing Priorities = Barriers To Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Community As a Source Of Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Empowerment Through Critical Praxis: Perspectives of Front-Line Workers Supporting Refugee Women Experiencing Gendered Violence in Australia

Maturi

2023

Affilia

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Consent in Refugee and Migrant Communities

Featherstone,

Byrnes,

Maturi

et al. 2023

Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies

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Approaches to gendered violence are generally based on a rights approach, encouraging women to seek help from the criminal justice system and services that might support them. But a victim’s rights approach to sexual violence and consent is only effective if women see those rights mirrored back at them in the help and protections they seek. Drawing on data from 19 semi-structured interviews with refugee and migrant antiviolence advocates in Australia, this chapter uses Sally Merry’s (Merry, Human Rights Quarterly 25:343–381, 2003) concept of a ‘rights consciousness’ to explore the tensions women might experience when problems related to gender are presented as a legal issue. Highlighting the tensions refugee and migrant women might face between taking on a rights defined self, and a self tied to family, kin and community, the findings explore three themes: “Marriage is Consent”, “Loyalty to Men”, and “Experiences with Justice”. Taken together, these findings advance the need to consider sexual violence and consent not just in individualistic legal terms, but as an issue of social justice that considers broader, intersecting inequalities. Rather than encouraging women to take up their rights, efforts should focus on how to ensure a rights approach is affirmed in responses to sexual violence and consent.

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Consent as Social Reproduction: Making Space for the Transformative Labour of Refugee and Migrant Anti-violence Advocates in Australia

Maturi

2024

Australian Feminist Studies

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Shifting the Center: Relocating Refugee Men in Strategies Aiming to Address Violence Against Women

Cited by 5 publications

References 58 publications

Revisiting Empowerment Through Critical Praxis: Perspectives of Front-Line Workers Supporting Refugee Women Experiencing Gendered Violence in Australia

Revisiting Empowerment Through Critical Praxis: Perspectives of Front-Line Workers Supporting Refugee Women Experiencing Gendered Violence in Australia

Consent in Refugee and Migrant Communities

Consent as Social Reproduction: Making Space for the Transformative Labour of Refugee and Migrant Anti-violence Advocates in Australia

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