- Title
- “I’ve got something to say and I need you to listen” : a photovoice study with women who have experienced family violence
- Creator
- Hunt, Michelle
- Date
- 2021
- Type
- Text; Thesis; PhD
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/180543
- Identifier
- vital:15779
- Abstract
- Family violence is recognised as a significant social issue in Australia that is predominantly perpetrated by men against women in intimate partner relationships. Once only of concern to women and feminist activists, family violence is now part of mainstream public policy and community service provision. This research was conducted within an industry, community and university partnership to improve services for women and children who have experienced family violence in the Central Highlands region of Victoria. This research study used photovoice, a feminist participatory research method, to gather the insights and knowledge of some of these women from this region. The participants produced, selected and contextualised photographs to share their vision of “strong families, safe children” as well as providing their insights on what services needed to do to support this vision. Ten women participated in the study and collectively contributed 42 photographs and attended 15 individual interviews and four group workshops over a six-month period. Through their photographs and narratives, the participants detailed their experiences of services, including the systemic abuse of power and coercion that undermined their relationships with their children. The participants described feeling blamed and further victimised when their interactions with services replicated the coercive control that they had experienced in their intimate partner relationships. Systemic racial discrimination and violence further compounded service encounters described by the Aboriginal women who participated in the study. The participants advocated for the transformation of family violence policy and practice from one reliant on patriarchal and colonial knowledge to one grounded in feminist epistemologies and women’s experiential knowledge. Consistent with feminist epistemologies, this research study highlights the importance of relational understandings of family violence, a position that acknowledges the significance of women’s social context and family networks, as well as the interconnectedness of women’s and children’s safety and wellbeing. This research study has implications for the family violence service system grappling with the inclusion of lived experience as being more than voice but encompassing the positioning of women’s experiential knowledge (with all its emotion, complexity and subjectivity) at the heart of policy and practice.; Doctor of Philosophy
- Publisher
- Federation University Australia
- Rights
- All metadata describing materials held in, or linked to, the repository is freely available under a CC0 licence
- Rights
- Copyright Michelle Hunt
- Rights
- Open Access
- Subject
- Feminism; Photovoice; Social work; Women; Family violence
- Full Text
- Thesis Supervisor
- Sadowski, Christina
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE2 | Australian Digital Thesis | 7 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |