Sociocultural Groundings of Battered Women’s Entrapment in Abusive Marital Relationship in Ghana
Sociocultural Groundings of Battered Women’s Entrapment in Abusive Marital Relationship in Ghana
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Date
2017-05-07
Authors
Adjei, S Baffour
Journal Title
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Publisher
Talor&Francis
Abstract
T
While social psychological theorizations have contributed to
our understanding of why battered women continue to remain
in abusive intimate relationships, its apparent exclusive focus
on individual victims’ psychological orientation leaves little
conceptual space for discovering the subtle ways by which
social and cultural norms shape the stay/leave decisions of
victims of spousal violence. Drawing upon discursive psychol ogy, this study explores the sociocultural groundings of stay/
leave decisions of battered women in Ghana. Semi-structured
focus groups and personal interviews were conducted with 32
participants: 16 victims and 16 perpetrators from rural and
urban Ghana. Discursive accounts of participants suggest that
post-divorce social stigma, remarriage alternatives, and post divorce child care, as well as privacy framing of marital abuse
function in concert to influence battered women’s entrapment
in violent marital relationships. The article argues that, rather
than individual psychological orientation, the decision to stay
in or leave abusive marital relationships in Ghana is sociocul turally and structurally grounded. To understand the highly
complex nature of spousal violence, one must always go
beyond the person and his or her psychological orientations,
and seek the origin of battered women’s entrapment also in
the external conditions of life, and in the sociocultural and
structural forms of human existence.
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Citation
Adjei, S. B. (2017). Sociocultural groundings of battered women’s entrapment in abusive marital relationship in Ghana. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 26(8), 879-901.