Doświadczenie przemocy w rodzinie. Autobiograficzne narracje kobiet
THE EXPERIENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES OF WOMEN

Author(s): Katarzyna Gajek
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Psychology, Sociology, Studies in violence and power
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: narrative; biography; trajectory; domestic violence; human strengths; autobiographical narrative
Summary/Abstract: The author analyzes the narratives of women in the context of Fritz Schutze's process structures. This book presents a noteworthy interpretation of the problem of violence against women.This book is an attempt to reconstruct personal and extremely difficult experience of domestic violence from the autobiographical narratives of women about their lives. It is the effect of research located in the interpretative paradigm and using the narrative interview method. The theoretical-methodological perspective adopted in the work makes it possible to recreate and understand a specific type of experience embedded in a determined situational, social and symbolic context.The analysis of female narratives, inscribed in three interpenetrating spaces, (family of orientation, family of procreation and support center) enabled the processual reconstruction of the experience of violence, and also indicates the relationship of the course of this phenomenon with biographical factors. The described fates of women show the process of their gradual enslavement, bring closer the ways of their experiencing and understanding the subsequent events, and stress their strengths and strategies used to cope with difficulties as well as the importance of other people's actions for the course of their lives. The narratives introduce into the meanings attributed to reality by the narrators, allow to reconstruct their point of view and the meaning of the experienced events. They reveal the process of identity deconstruction, powerlessness caused by a series of overwhelming life events, but also the metamorphosis and biographical work on traumatic experiences. The research on women's individual experiences also enabled the generation of certain generalizations (models, categorizations) regarding the phenomenon of violence, including three processual models of narrators' biographies (“Mental Self-Denying Persons”, “Strongwomen”, and “Warriors”).The picture of the experience of domestic violence reconstructed in this work may be a way for the Reader to get to know and understand the other person's experiences. It may also be a starting point for the reflection on one's own experiences or convictions, for reflection on the relationship of violence with the socio-cultural, political, legal and historical context, or it can be a reference for designing practical solutions.

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