Objectified knowledge and abstracted discourse: Excluding abused women's lived realities from Canadian child custody law.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 273
ISBN-13: 9780494220436
Description: Research into abused women's experiences of the family law system reports that they experience a profound sense of betrayal, as they disclose intimate violence to various professionals. Consistently, these studies show that women's revelations are distorted and minimized in custody negotiation processes and then ignored as women are pressured to accept difficult and, at times, dangerous custody arrangements. These experiences occur fundamentally because the system is permeated with objectified knowledge and particularized discursive meanings and images about high conflict violence, abused women, children's best interests, and the 'proper' family.This dissertation presents the findings of an institutional ethnography of abused women's experiences of custody negotiation. Data were collected through 32 in-depth interviews with abused women of differing social locations, women's advocates, family law lawyers, and child custody mediators and assessors. The analyses document how women's experiences of intimate relationship violence---fear, isolation, pain, and anger---become inserted into, altered, and silenced by disciplinary knowledge---the standardized, official accounts produced by policy, institutional, and professional discourses and practices. Interviews with professionals revealed how their routine and mandated practices altered women's stories, so that these are hearable within the system. The thesis concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for professional practice, policy, and research.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-01, Section: A, page: 0347.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.