Unexpected Subjects – Intimate Partner Violence, Testimony, and the Law

Häftad, Engelska, 2020

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Unexpected Subjects is an ethnography of the encounter between women’s words and the demands of the law in the context of adjudications on intimate partner violence. A study of institutional devices, it focuses on women’s practices of resistance and the elicitation of intelligible subjectivities. Using Italy as an illustrative case, Alessandra Gribaldo explores the problematic encounter between the need to speak, the entanglement of violence and intimacy, and the way the law approaches domestic violence. On this basis she advances theoretical reflections on questions of evidence, persuasion, and testimony, and their implications for ethnographic theory. Gribaldo analyzes dynamics that create the victim-subject, shedding light on how the Italian legal system reproduces broader conditions of violence against women. This book will be of great interest to all social scientists concerned with gender and the law.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2020-09-01
Mått129 x 207 x 12 mm
Vikt186 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor80
FörlagHAU Society Of Ethnographic Theory
ISBN9781912808304

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Antropologi inom Samhalle och politik

IntroductionChapter 1. (Un)familiar violenceViolence degree zeroMistreated subjects and intractable violenceChapter 2. Wavering intentionsRecognize and speak the violence!Maltrattamenti in famiglia and the abused subjectThe experience of intimate partner violence: A crime with a storyChapter 3. Confessing victimhoodEvidence and testimonial proofThe burden of evidence: experienceWhen evidence lies in the victim subjectChapter 4. The gender of true-lyingThe burden of persuasion: intention and biased evidenceAgency vs credibilityOblique narratives: the imperfect victimConclusions

"With her book, Gribaldo makes her mark in advocating for women to be heard and for institutions and the public to listen closely. It asks us to rethink the expectations of the socio-legal system and to incorporate the unexpected in the narrative reconstruction of cases of intimate partner violence. Above all, she provides a much-needed challenge to the standard for intelligible subjectivities and shows how the process of elicitation in the way law enforcement, social services, as well as courts handle cases of intimate partner violence, distorts realities and produces contradictory subjectivities which harm the solidity of the case."