Violent Intimacy

Winner of the 2022 Research Publication Book Award from the Association of Chinese Professors of Social Sciences in the United States. Based on ethnographic research with victims of intimate partner violence since 2014, this book brings to the forefront womens experiences of, negotiations about, and contestations against violence, and mens narratives about the reasons for their violence. Using an innovative methodology - online chat groups, it foregrounds the role of history, structural inequalities, and the cultural system of power hierarchy in situating and constructing intimate partner violence. Centering on men and womens narratives about violence, this book connects intimate partner violence with invisible structural violence the historical, cultural, political, economic, and legal context that gives rise to and perpetuates violence against women. Through examining the ways in which womens lives are constrained by various forms of violence, hierarchy, and inequality, this book shows that violence against women is a structural issue that is historically produced and politically and culturally engaged.