NCJ Number
231527
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 16 Issue: 7 Dated: July 2010 Pages: 789-811
Date Published
July 2010
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This study examined the cultural narratives, explanatory models, and idioms of suffering that South Asian battered women use to describe their experiences and how they are affected by culturally influenced ideologies regarding marriage, family, gender, and migration.
Abstract
This article examines the narratives of suffering expressed by a group of South Asian immigrant survivors of domestic violence who accessed a mental health clinic in New York City. These accounts illustrate women's own perceptions of their suffering and symptoms and provide a window into the South Asian immigrant community's ideologies and moral domains regarding gender, violence, and sickness, as well as how individuals vary in their endorsement of these ideologies. The women's narratives illustrate how migration and culture interact with the deeply personal experience of suffering caused by domestic and sexual violence. Tables and references (Published Abstract)