Abstract
My Ph.D. research is based on an ethnographic investigation of social work advocacy practices toward migrant women who have suffered domestic violence. The investigation was undertaken in a women’s shelter located in South Tyrol. The shelter is administered by an association of women and, for the purposes of this thesis, I have named the association DoRi. In previous years, I had practiced as a social worker at this shelter, and had observed the difficulties that frequently obstacle the empowerment of the migrant women who sought our help. I decided to analyse the social, economic, institutional and legal barriers that generate the vulnerability of migrant women to interpersonal and structural violence. My research aimed to recognise whether, and to what extent, the practices of the women’s shelter operators in fact reproduced these barriers. The goal of the research was to foster practice transformation and thereby reduce the vulnerability of migrant women to structural violence and ensure their ongoing empowerment.
The research process developed in three specific ways. Firstly, I analysed the cases of ten migrant women, all of whom I had personally supported during my four-year work experience at the shelter. The aim of this analysis was to investigate my own approach in supporting migrant women and to analyse the structural barriers and social or cultural obstacles that affected their empowerment from the moment they turned to the shelter for assistance. The outcomes of this initial analysis then formed the content for a set of meetings that I organised with a number of the shelter operators and members of the DoRi association. These meetings aimed to gather the operators’ perspectives on their own work and to encourage a shared reflection on the ways that structural violence might be present in their practices. Secondly, and while serving as a volunteer in the safe house (the refuge where the women and their children live after escaping from their home), I undertook my participant observations. These observations provided a lens on the shelter’s operators’ approach to the migrant women seeking support from the shelter. Thirdly, I documented fourteen in-depth interviews undertaken with eight migrant women who had lived in the safe house. These interviews captured their points of view about the support that they had received. The research analysis was based on the triangulation of these different perspectives.
I also engaged in a self-reflexive process in order to deconstruct my positionality within the research field and to put in “brackets” my own point of view. It was also important that I used this process to interrogate the feelings that had emerged within me during what was a transition from the role of a shelter operator to that of a researcher and ‘outsider’ in the shelter environment. It was at this point that I recognised the need to create a more collaborative and inclusive process with the shelter’s operators and members DoRi. I then organised a series of meetings with them where we discussed the outcomes of my analysis and the migrant women’s points of view. We also shared the text of my dissertation, which included some parts written by the operators themselves. These shared activities consolidated the collaborative process, and through the use of emic concepts (concepts that the shelter’s operators could recognise as their own ) provided the opportunity for the operators to rethink their practices. Due to the migrant women’s vulnerability, and considering the specific dynamics associated with domestic violence, I paid specific attention to the ethics of my research process to ensure that the women were not exposed to further emotional risk.
In my analysis, I have identified legal, linguistic, economic and institutional barriers, including the declination of these set of barriers in the local context, and their intersection with both the racism that the women have confronted in their daily lives, and the specific moral codes of the women’s families or their countries of origin. This analysis made explicit the ways that Italian immigration laws, norms and procedures, the dynamics of the migration processes, and the intersection of these elements with the women’s gender belonging, contribute to the ongoing marginalisation of migrant women and increase their vulnerability. Subsequently, I was able to recognise the extent to which the shelter operators reproduce these barriers in their advocacy practices. This analysis also took into account the influence of the cultural and institutional context in which the shelter is embedded. I then applied Bourdieu’s concept of habitus in order to investigate, from an ethnographic point of view, the interaction between the practices of the operators and the wider context in which they work.
The research process and resulting dissertation has fostered an increased awareness among the shelter operators and association members about the nature of their practices, as well as the shelter’s ‘position’ within the local institutional context. This awareness has stimulated their commitment to rethinking the shelter’s practices toward migrant women and the association’s overall political agenda, which, in combating the structural violence that transversally affects migrant women, should also consider the specific barriers that impede the empowerment of migrant women.
The goal of the research, and my personal involvement within the research field, required a specific feminist and critical engagement. Intersectionality provided an adequate perspective to assist in identifying the structural barriers that generate the marginalization of abused migrant women. The critical approach of the research revealed its functionality in applying ethnographic methods in ways that have been able to deconstruct the taken for granted of the shelter’s practices, and to question the local institutional and welfare system. And, most importantly, the feminist perspective was mirrored in both the self-reflective stance of the research and the research’s contribution to the promotion of women’s rights.
My Ph.D. research is based on an ethnographic investigation of social work advocacy practices toward migrant women who have suffered domestic violence. The investigation was undertaken in a women’s shelter located in South Tyrol. The shelter is administered by an association of women and, for the purposes of this thesis, I have named the association DoRi. In previous years, I had practiced as a social worker at this shelter, and had observed the difficulties that frequently obstacle the empowerment of the migrant women who sought our help. I decided to analyse the social, economic, institutional and legal barriers that generate the vulnerability of migrant women to interpersonal and structural violence. My research aimed to recognise whether, and to what extent, the practices of the women’s shelter operators in fact reproduced these barriers. The goal of the research was to foster practice transformation and thereby reduce the vulnerability of migrant women to structural violence and ensure their ongoing empowerment.
The research process developed in three specific ways. Firstly, I analysed the cases of ten migrant women, all of whom I had personally supported during my four-year work experience at the shelter. The aim of this analysis was to investigate my own approach in supporting migrant women and to analyse the structural barriers and social or cultural obstacles that affected their empowerment from the moment they turned to the shelter for assistance. The outcomes of this initial analysis then formed the content for a set of meetings that I organised with a number of the shelter operators and members of the DoRi association. These meetings aimed to gather the operators’ perspectives on their own work and to encourage a shared reflection on the ways that structural violence might be present in their practices. Secondly, and while serving as a volunteer in the safe house (the refuge where the women and their children live after escaping from their home), I undertook my participant observations. These observations provided a lens on the shelter’s operators’ approach to the migrant women seeking support from the shelter. Thirdly, I documented fourteen in-depth interviews undertaken with eight migrant women who had lived in the safe house. These interviews captured their points of view about the support that they had received. The research analysis was based on the triangulation of these different perspectives.
I also engaged in a self-reflexive process in order to deconstruct my positionality within the research field and to put in “brackets” my own point of view. It was also important that I used this process to interrogate the feelings that had emerged within me during what was a transition from the role of a shelter operator to that of a researcher and ‘outsider’ in the shelter environment. It was at this point that I recognised the need to create a more collaborative and inclusive process with the shelter’s operators and members DoRi. I then organised a series of meetings with them where we discussed the outcomes of my analysis and the migrant women’s points of view. We also shared the text of my dissertation, which included some parts written by the operators themselves. These shared activities consolidated the collaborative process, and through the use of emic concepts (concepts that the shelter’s operators could recognise as their own ) provided the opportunity for the operators to rethink their practices. Due to the migrant women’s vulnerability, and considering the specific dynamics associated with domestic violence, I paid specific attention to the ethics of my research process to ensure that the women were not exposed to further emotional risk.
In my analysis, I have identified legal, linguistic, economic and institutional barriers, including the declination of these set of barriers in the local context, and their intersection with both the racism that the women have confronted in their daily lives, and the specific moral codes of the women’s families or their countries of origin. This analysis made explicit the ways that Italian immigration laws, norms and procedures, the dynamics of the migration processes, and the intersection of these elements with the women’s gender belonging, contribute to the ongoing marginalisation of migrant women and increase their vulnerability. Subsequently, I was able to recognise the extent to which the shelter operators reproduce these barriers in their advocacy practices. This analysis also took into account the influence of the cultural and institutional context in which the shelter is embedded. I then applied Bourdieu’s concept of habitus in order to investigate, from an ethnographic point of view, the interaction between the practices of the operators and the wider context in which they work.
The research process and resulting dissertation has fostered an increased awareness among the shelter operators and association members about the nature of their practices, as well as the shelter’s ‘position’ within the local institutional context. This awareness has stimulated their commitment to rethinking the shelter’s practices toward migrant women and the association’s overall political agenda, which, in combating the structural violence that transversally affects migrant women, should also consider the specific barriers that impede the empowerment of migrant women.
The goal of the research, and my personal involvement within the research field, required a specific feminist and critical engagement. Intersectionality provided an adequate perspective to assist in identifying the structural barriers that generate the marginalization of abused migrant women. The critical approach of the research revealed its functionality in applying ethnographic methods in ways that have been able to deconstruct the taken for granted of the shelter’s practices, and to question the local institutional and welfare system. And, most importantly, the feminist perspective was mirrored in both the self-reflective stance of the research and the research’s contribution to the promotion of women’s rights.