Decolonising Family Violence Legal Intervention Orders in African-Australian Communities

This book presents an intersectional, decolonial analysis of family violence intervention/prevention within the African-Australians Communities in Victoria, Australia. It explores the experiences of Family Violence Intervention Orders (FVIOs), assessing their effectiveness as interventions and safeguards against family violence in the African-Australian Communities. It investigates the influence of African-Australians cultural practices on the understanding and application of FVIOs, as well as participants' proposed strategies for enhancing or aligning these legal interventions with existing African practices for preventing and managing family violence. The application of this intersectional approach plays a pivotal role in illuminating complexities of social history, culture, and identity that intersect with, and extend beyond, gender. This includes experiences of social conflict, migration, exclusion, and hardship. These factors complicated their experiences of family violence and added layers of intricacy when navigating the Australian legal system to seek legal protection through family violence intervention orders. The book documents these complexities in intersecting experiences of family violence, the cultural specificities of the Australian legal system's interventions in family matters, intervention orders, and the involvement of various services. It shows how the implementation of the FVIOs with little consideration for social and cultural context diminishes their effectiveness as tools to combat family violence and enhance safety within the African-Australian communities. This book speaks to family violence scholars and practitioners and to those interested in multicultural and migration studies and intersectional and decolonial methods more broadly.