CAUGHT IN THE WEB OF RELATIONS: GIVING VOICE TO ABUSED PORTUGUESE-SPEAKING IMMIGRANT WOMEN

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

1999

RESUMO

This dissertation examines the experiences of ten Portuguese-speaking women who have immigrated to Toronto, Canada (either from Portugal, including the Azores, or from Brazil), and who, on experiencing abuse at the hands of their male partners, have subsequently sought social services. This qualitative research study is informed by both feminist and social constructivist theories, as well as by a central metaphorthe web of relationswhich is the network of institutional relations in which, I argue, the women in my study are embedded. The threads of this web may be said to represent the social constraints these women experience in their relations with the various institutions that surround them, and with which they share the web. When the constraining threads of this web are loosened, however, then various rights and opportunities (symbolized by the spaces in the web) open up to them, empowering them and improving their options in society. Thus the web has a dual potential: on the one hand, restrictive, on the other, enabling. The institutional relations I specifically explore include those that exist between the women in my study and, respectively, immigration, welfare, the labour market, the family, the church, and, finally, the social service agencies these women access. The data were collected through interviews with the ten selected women. Additional data (concerning abused immigrant women in general, and abused Portuguese speaking immigrant women in particular), were obtained from a second group recruited both from within and outside the Portuguese-speaking community. Of this particular group, 14 are service providers (whose professional experience has included working with abused immigrant women) and 8 are other key informants (who work in an administrative capacity in various social service agencies in Toronto). I conclude that if society is to respond more appropriately to the needs of abused Portuguese-speaking immigrant women in particular, and abused immigrant women in general, then policy makers, community leaders, and service providers must become more aware of the vast web of relations in which the lives of such women are pushed and pulled in multiple and often erratic ways, specially given the combined impacts of a neoconservative agenda, government cutbacks, funding guidelines, and professional ideology (among other factors) which have affected the potential of social services to empower such women and improve their options in society.

ASSUNTO(S)

immigrant women servico social da saude institutional relations violência doméstica violência contra a mulher abuse violência familiar social services women experience

Documentos Relacionados