Sociocultural Groundings of Battered Women’s Entrapment in Abusive Marital Relationship in Ghana

Adjei, Sam

doi:10.1080/10926771.2017.1284171

Cited by 11 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Rather than perceived as helpless victims, lacking in agency, battered women in Ghana act in ways that illustrate the co-existence of agency and relationality. To ask why battered women stay in abusive relationships may have an unintended implication that they are impervious to contextual factors, or that they are expected to ignore the sociocultural constraints that impact personal behaviour and choices (see Adjei, 2017b). It may be an important oversight to explain battered women's intentional behaviour in violent relationships only from their private internal space and motives without a critical reflection of their interdependency, social embeddedness and normative meaning systems that circumscribe people's thought and sense of personhood.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Persons in Ghana exist as individuals, as members of a group and as members of a community, all of which are constantly interacting and inter-penetrating one another (Adjei, 2016a). There is an emphasis on the externality of self-positioning in this cultural context, where the 'other' person and social institutions such as the extended family gain precedence over and above the individual self and choices (Adjei, 2017b). The social positioning of the self in Ghana is very central to the understanding of intentional actions of battered women.…”

Section: The Social Positioning Of Personhood In Ghanamentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Social Intentionality of Battered Women’s Agency in Ghana

Adjei

2018

Psychology and Developing Societies

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There is a growing body of research which suggests that victims of intimate partner violence (IPV; mostly women) continue to remain in abusive relationships. Many of the Western psychological theorisations focus on battered women’s personal dispositions and/or the self-creating (individualistic) view of agency to explain why victims remain in violent relationships. These studies seem to suggest that staying in a violent relationship is a personal decision that victims make in free will, and that victims who continue to stay fail to act on their own behalf. Drawing upon the Ghanaian communal conceptualisation of personhood and the social norms of marriage and divorce, this study questions the individualistic theorisations of battered women’s decisions to stay in or leave abusive relationships. The article argues that battered women’s agency in negotiating the stay/leave decisions in abusive relationships does not only originate in an independent autonomous self, nor constituted by a person’s internal motives, but also, and even primarily, it is culturally grounded and dependent on social relations for its realisation. The article concludes that the agency of abused women in Ghana has a social intentionality, in the sense that battered women’s intentional behaviour in marital relationships is both constituted by self and constrained by their relational embeddedness.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Social Positioning Of Personhood In Ghanamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social Intentionality of Battered Women’s Agency in Ghana

Adjei

2018

Psychology and Developing Societies

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“…The kind of network of interaction and dependencies which form the basis for the economy of affection is in sharp contrast with what occurs in WEIRD settings of North American worlds where “the common currency is that of a service for a fee” (Strupp, 2000, p. 111). The African communal self is so pervasive that when it has to be subordinated to personal choices and actions, it could create social fracture and even personal discomfort (Adjei, 2017b). These exemplars of African interdependence and communalism reflect the particularities of knowledge, African psychological experiences, and how a particular indigenous understanding of personhood contributes to the diversification of psychological concepts across different cultural contexts.…”

Section: Social Intentionality Of Personhood In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This assumption is based on justice and individualistic morality of the West which regards the decision to stay or leave a violent relationship as a personal decision based on the freewill of a moral agent. Though violence against a partner in a marital relationship is suffered by an individual, the morality of the abuser’s violent behaviour and the endurer’s decision-making process to stay or leave in Africa involves collective interaction and interconnectedness (see Adjei, 2015, 2017a, 2017b). The collective experience and morality of the extended family guides individual endurers of violence in negotiating appropriate stay/leave decisions in abusive marriages.…”

Section: Social Intentionality Of African Moralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the WEIRD notion of a person as a self-contained and value-free moral agent in control of his fate and intentional actions appears alien to African Psychology and the ontology of communalism in which a person is not, and cannot be, separated from others and their surrounding social context. African philosophical, sociological, and psychological scholarship generally agree on the assumptions of the African worldview as primarily communal and normative based on specific values and meaning systems that guide the Africentric paradigm of knowledge and human functioning, mutatis mutandis (e.g., Adjei, 2017b; Assimeng, 1999; Gyekye, 1996; Ikuenobe, 2006; Mbiti, 1989; Nwoye, 2015; Verhoef & Michel, 1997). This article discusses the social intentionality of personhood, agency, and morality from an African perspective and identifies their implications for psychological theorisation.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Conceptualising personhood, agency, and morality for African psychology

Adjei

2019

Theory & Psychology

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One of the functions of psychological science is to develop concepts for thinking about people and their well-being. Since its establishment as a scientific discipline in the late 19th century, psychology has developed concepts that are essentially rooted in the specific spatio-temporal context of Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) countries. There is a growing ontological and epistemological awareness that psychological science and practices from WEIRD cultural spaces cannot be exclusively representative of the African experience. I draw from interpersonal violence research to discuss the concepts of personhood, agency, and morality from an African perspective and highlight their theoretical and practical utility for psychological science. Based on African communalism, I argue that an understanding of personhood, agency, and morality as culturally contextualised and socially intentioned phenomena is foundational to the advancement of heterogeneous practices of knowledge production in diverse contexts.

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The influences of sociocultural norms on women's decision to disclose intimate partner violence: Integrative review

et al. 2023

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Sociocultural norms against women can contribute to promoting intimate partner violence (IPV) and shape women's decision to disclose IPV. A cross‐cultural analysis of the existing literature is needed to present an overview of the influences of sociocultural norms on women's decisions regarding the disclosure of IPV across different cultural contexts. The purpose of the review was to synthesize published quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods (MMs) studies to identify known sociocultural norms across different cultures that may influence women's decision to disclose IPV. The Whittemore and Knafl framework, Rayyan software, and PRISMA flow diagram were used. Databases included APA PsycInfo, CINAHL, PubMed, SocINDEX, and Women's Studies International. The quality of studies was assessed by the MMs appraisal tool. A total of 15 research articles written in English and published in peer‐reviewed journals were included. Main categories emerged: (1) stigma surrounding IPV disclosure, victimization, and divorce; (2) gender roles; (3) preserving family honor; and (4) Children's well‐being and future. A one‐size‐fits‐all approach is not adequate for women who are considering disclosing IPV. Findings underscore that regardless of residing in individualistic countries, those sociocultural norms related to traditional gender roles and gender inequality are still important barriers to the disclosure of IPV among women with collectivist roots.

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Sociocultural Groundings of Battered Women’s Entrapment in Abusive Marital Relationship in Ghana

Cited by 11 publications

References 31 publications

The Social Intentionality of Battered Women’s Agency in Ghana

The Social Intentionality of Battered Women’s Agency in Ghana

Conceptualising personhood, agency, and morality for African psychology

The influences of sociocultural norms on women's decision to disclose intimate partner violence: Integrative review

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