Having the Lower Hand—Investigating Interaction in the Life Course Narratives of Immigrant Women Exposed to Partner Abuse

Abstract

Research has documented the considerable hardships immigrant women often face if they want to leave abusive relationships, but the cumulative impacts of such experiences have received insufficient scholarly attention. In response, this study investigates women’s difficulties leaving abusive relationships based on life story interviews with 35 immigrant women who experienced partner abuse. Almost all the women originated from “patriarchal belt” countries in, for example, the Middle East and all arrived in Denmark as adults. Using a model of gendered geographies of power, this study examines key interview passages in which the women use dramatized speech to tell about their younger selves’ interactions with significant others. These dramatized episodes of interactions emerge as crucial for the interviewees to communicate why they remained in abusive relationships for years and how most finally managed to leave their husbands. The narrated episodes reveal how the women’s frequent lack of success in various interactional situations can be attributed to women “having the lower hand”—holding disadvantaged positions in the familial, social, and national hierarchies of power. These hierarchies reinforce each other, for example, when insecure residency status limits immigrant women’s options to solicit help from Danish society. The analysis demonstrates that—in contrast to the stereotype of the abused immigrant woman as a passive victim—micro- and macro-level processes may work together to undermine immigrant women’s possibilities to act independently at important junctures in their lives. The results also stress the importance that frontline workers have sufficient understanding of immigrant women’s predicament and the ability to extend qualified and timely support. Such support can be crucial for abused immigrant women to become able to move away from their violent home environments.

Muslimske kvinder og skilsmisse i en dansk kontekst

“…Her ville "…alle jo kigge på mig og taenke, at der er noget galt med mig. " Wafa ville endvidere have svaert ved at blive gift igen, og hendes livschancer som enlig, fraskilt kvinde, ville vaere dårlige (Liversage 2013b). Deres svage indplacering i blandt andet familiaere og nationale magthierarkier begraenser dermed disse to indvandrerkvinders muligheder for at udøve "social agency", og forme deres livsbaner efter egne ønsker.…”

“…Et eksempel er, når der i Danmark er en liberal skilsmisselovgivning og samfundsmaessige strukturer, der understøtter enlige mødre, og gør det lettere for indvandrede kvinder at blive skilt, sammenlignet med situationen i deres oprindelseslande (Darvishpour 1999). Hos såvel aegtemaend som i familie og lokalmiljø kan der dog vaere stor modstand imod skilsmisser, da de bryder med etablerede normer og praksisser og udfordrer gaeldende magtstrukturer (Qureshi 2013;2016;Liversage 2013a;2020). Kontrasten imellem forskellige syn på skilsmisse ses også i den forskellige indstilling hertil, der kan vaere hos hhv.…”