Achieving a Sustainable Livelihood After Leaving Intimate Partner Violence: Challenges and Opportunities

“It’s a struggle but it’s also a strength”: Embodied declarations of resistance, resilience, and strength amongst survivors of gendered violence

“…These 'efforts' are highly problematic because they not only perpetuate gender stereotypes, but they also decontextualize and essentialize participants' experiences, disregarding the complexity of women's lives based on their subject positions. Through extensive engagement with the present literature on gendered violence, three key themes emerged: (1) risk (Goodman, Dutton, Vankos & Weinfurt, 2005;Jaquier, Fisher & Johnson, 2011;Pedersen, Malcoe & Pulkingham, 2013;Romans, Forte, Cohen, Du Mont, & Hyman, 2007), (2) challenges and barriers (Johnson, 2017;Kumar, Nizamie, Srivastava, 2013;Pajak et al, 2014;Pyles & DeChiro, 2012), and (3) resistance, resilience and survival (Crann & Barata, 2016;Duffy, 2015;Drumm et al, 2014;Frohmann, 2005). Each of these themes will be further discussed below.…”

“…Focus on resilience, resistance, and survival have made its way into more recent research on gendered violence, but is not the central focus of the research (Crann & Barata, 2016;Drumm et al, 2014;Duffy, 2015;Pyles & DeChiro, 2012 (Fraser & Jarldon, 2015, p. 169;Pajak et al, 2014Pajak et al, , p. 2581. This suggests that female survivors are 'resilient' only if they 'successfully' leave and stay out of an abusive relationship.…”

“…The authors only briefly noted participants' refusal to be silenced as a major form of resistance despite their hopeful title, "Stories of Survival and Resistance". Duffy (2015) and Frohmann (2005) incorporate photos into their research. Frohmann uses participant-generated photos and individual or group photo-elicitation interviews to explore women's 'stories' of resistance, and the ways in which they keep themselves safe.…”

“…In this way, photos can assist with the exteriorization of memories and emotions (Sinding, Warren & Paton, 2014, p. 191). Indeed, Duffy (2015) and Frohmann's (2005) research demonstrate how art not only enables the expression of emotions, but also facilitates a process of knowledge and meaning making.…”

Violence at the Intersections of Women’s Lives in an Urban Context: Indigenous Women’s Experiences of Leaving and/or Staying With an Abusive Partner

“…In this process, women draw on various forms of health and social supports (Duffy, 2015; Ford-Gilboe et al, 2005); for example, in a study of 309 Canadian women who had separated from an abusive partner (Ford-Gilboe et al, 2015), women used health and social services at a significantly higher rate than women in general, yet still they experienced unmet needs and barriers to accessing key health and social supports due to multiple intersecting social and structural factors (e.g., economic challenges, a lack of child care, service availability and/or response). After “leaving,” a substantial proportion of women continue to live with posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and other trauma-related problems (Dillon et al, 2013; Ford-Gilboe et al, 2009).…”