About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

20 PoLAR 115 (1997)
Understanding Victimization and Agency: Considerations of Race, Class and Gender

handle is hein.journals/polar20 and id is 279 raw text is: Patricia Connell Institute of Criminology, Darwin College Cambridge University Understanding Victimization and Agency: Considerations of Race, Class and Gender Introduction One of the continuing dilemmas in researching women's lives is how to incorporate into analysis an understanding of the complex realities with which women struggle'. In the criminological enterprise this dilemma is further translated into questions of how to incorporate an understanding of women's complex realities into socio-legal discourse and practice. This paper is an engagement with notions of victimization and agency, with specific reference to Black2 British women of Caribbean ancestry who have experienced abuse from intimate partners. Black British women's experiences are mediated by multiple oppressions, and this fact shapes the ways these women attempt to transform their abusive situations. The paper explores the ways in which particular models of 'victimization' and understandings of 'agency' or 'self-determination' inform academic, legal and policy discourse and practice. It is particularly concerned with the way in which understandings of victimization and agency are often translated into constructions of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' womanhood. Exploring Victimization and Agency Feminist attempts to explore the experiences of women expose the myriad ways in which women experience and respond to abuse. Black feminists have attempted to redress the way in which white feminists have failed to incorporate the experiences of minority women into analysis.' The literature depicts women in abusive situations in quite diverse manners. At the risk of oversimplification, I narrow the discussion here to two general trends evident in this literature: one that emphasizes women's victimization, and one that emphasizes women's agency. Below, I explore each trend in its own right and analyze how conceptual categories used to understand women's situations are defined in relation to each other. Next, I explore the socio-legal implications of the two general trends this essay identifies. Ultimately, I argue that there is a need for greater rigor and more flexibility in research on minority women in abusive situations. Contextualizing victimization Multiple sites of victimization Women's oppression is often analyzed in terms of the concept victimization. In much of feminist work, women's victimization is attributed to power and control by men, both at the individual and structural levels (Hanmer, 1978; Dobash and Dobash, 1979; Bograd, 1988). There is renewed attention to the way in which victimization is conceptualized because of the insights gained

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most