1st Edition
The Borders of Violence Temporary Migration and Domestic and Family Violence
This book explores the structural harm of borders and non-citizenship, specifically temporary non-citizenship, in the perpetuation of domestic and family violence (DFV). It focuses on the stories and situations of over 300 women in Australia. The analysis foregrounds how the state and the migration system both sustain and enable violence against women. In doing so this book demonstrates how structural violence is an insidious component of gendered violence – limiting and curtailing women’s safety.
The Borders of Violence advances contemporary research on DFV by considering the role of the state and the migration system. It bridges different fields of scholarship to interrogate our knowledge about DFV and its impacts and improve our critical accounts of gender, structural violence and borders. It illuminates the ways in which temporary non-citizens are often silenced and/or their experiences are obfuscated by state processes, policies and practices, which are weaponised by perpetrators in countries of destination and origin, with impunity.
An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of border criminology, criminology, sociology, politics, sociology, law and social policy. It offers key insights for professionals, policy makers, stakeholders and advocates working broadly to support temporary non-citizens and/or to address and eliminate violence against women.
1. Introduction: mapping borders, temporary migration and domestic and family violence 2. Researching temporary migration and domestic and family violence 3. Weaponising migration status in domestic and family violence: the violence of everyday bordering 4. Exposing the boundaries of safety: examining support for temporary migrants experiencing domestic and family violence 5. Beyond the law: trafficking, slavery, servitude, forced labour and abandonment 6. The border of domestic and family violence: exposing violence that is unseen 7. The boundaries of belonging and the boundaries of safety
Biography
Marie Segrave is Professor of Criminology at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Stefani Vasil is a lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice, at the Australian Catholic University, Australia.
"Policy and legal silos can contribute to reproducing violence and injustice. This brilliantly argued book teaches us how an interdisciplinary lens attentive to practice enables us to see and act across these divides. Its imaginative and unflinching analysis holds to account borders and the social and legal systems that uphold them."
Professor Bridget Anderson, Director of Migration Mobilities Bristol, University of Bristol.
"Segrave and Vasil throw into sharp relief how the everyday border practices of state migration systems allow for and in fact expose women who are temporary visa holders to gendered violences that are simultaneously intimate and structural. Theirs is a vital challenge to expand our ways of listening, researching and accounting for these border violences in order to create accountabilities that can create a better future."Professor JaneMaree Maher, Centre for Women’s Studies and Gender Research, Sociology, Monash University
"A powerful analysis of the structural inequalities and hidden violence embedded in domestic and family violence systems and migration systems, The Borders of Violence reveals how the state’s bordering processes and construction of temporary status facilitate gendered violence, constrain access to protection, and demarcate the very boundaries of belonging - with profound implications for women’s safety."Nancy A. Wonders, Professor Emeritus of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northern Arizona University
"In this volume, Marie Segrave and Stefani Vasil skilfully chart the complex terrain of temporary migration and domestic and family violence. Based on rich empirical research and a vast amount of original data, the authors point out to the uncomfortable truth: that nation-states produce and sustain structural harm, and that this maintains the leverage of perpetrators over women within and across national borders. Given the fact that this important issue has so far eluded the scrutiny in the academy, a volume like this one brings the temporary migration-domestic/family violence nexus one step closer to where it must be: at the centre stage in policy, research, and public discourse."Sanja Milivojevic, Associate Professor in Digital Futures, Bristol University & Co-Director, Border Criminologies, Oxford University.
