The Burden of Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence, Experience, and Persuasion

Abstract

In domestic violence cases, the production of legal evidence faces several challenges. While scholars have amply discussed the issues of intimacy, dependency, and ambivalence, their relationship with evidence and persuasion appears undertheorized. The Italian context is particularly suitable for analyzing this issue, as the testimony of the victim is central in cases of intimate partner violence. Drawing on ethnographic research into domestic violence and the law, I analyze the two components of the burden of proof: evidence and persuasion. The first corresponds to the reconstruction of facts based on eliciting the victim's experience in the form of a story; the second to how the persuasiveness of testimony is judged based on the performance of authenticity. Questioning the notion that one of the qualities of evidence—in law as in anthropology—is to be free of human intention, the article suggests that these two components of proof appear, in cases of intimate violence, not only mutually implicated but also in a relationship of intractable contradiction.

Domestic violence as terrorism: Can control orders succeed where DV orders have failed?

“…53 The challenge is that 'proof of structural violence … is generally required of the ones who suffer violence and not the perpetrators'. 54 In effect, survivors must 'prove' their experiences to the court's satisfaction.…”

Death and salvation of refugee women on European borders: Race, gender and class of bodies and power

“…For instance, refugee women are corrected and reprimanded by humanitarian staff when their behaviour is not considered sufficiently appropriate to guarantee their well-being or if they are considered incapable of properly educating their children. Furthermore, refugee women are expected to recount their experiences of abuse, such as rape or mutilation, in a language that is clear, coherent and free of contradictions (Gribaldo 2019), and to condemn the cultural practices through which their bodies have been violated. Although these humanitarian expectations refer to a specific context, they also represent the grammar of international protocols and guidelines on the treatment of gender violence in migration for asylum.…”

L’intimité, la fiabilité et les paroles des femmes : quand les violences conjugales rencontrent les institutions

“…Déclarer avoir subi des violences veut dire revendiquer des droits et réclamer un changement en se référant à son histoire personnelle. Témoigner de violences conjugales implique, pour les femmes, le risque de se trouver marginalisées, jugées excessives, perçues comme jouant les victimes et considérées comme des manipulatrices : les femmes ne parlent pas ; elles parlent trop ou trop peu ; et leurs témoignages sont paradoxaux dans leur constitution même, caractérisés par une structure inadéquate et contradictoire (Gribaldo 2014 Concernant mon travail, ma réflexion a été développée au fils des années (Gribaldo 2014(Gribaldo , 2019a(Gribaldo , 2019b, aussi grâce à une bourse qui m'a permis de revenir sur mes données 2 . Les pages qui suivent ne peuvent pas tenir compte du complexe débat anthropologique autour des questions légales (Nader 2002, De Lauri 2013, et des régimes de légalité (Resta 2017).…”