The literature on Domestic Violence (DV) and refugees settling in developed countries is sparse, despite concerns from service providers and policy makers that communities are experiencing DV that it is negatively affecting wellbeing and the chances of successful settlement.
There is general consensus among researchers that DV is not more prevalent among immigrant and refugee groups than native-born American women. While many dynamics of DV are similar, specific factors inherent to displacement and refugee and immigration status exacerbate risks and shape experiences of DV among refugee and other forcibly displaced women.
Of note, the majority of the literature on refugees and DV has focused on women, not men, perpetuating a unnuanced binary of victim/perpetrator. Among the few studies that have addressed the experience of refugee men, violence was explained contextually as a means of gaining control and re-establishing power following the trauma and violence experienced in their home countries. What is needed, and what this presentation addresses, is a more nuanced approach to understanding DV among refugee men and women. Transnational feminist and intersectional approaches acknowledge that gender oppression is modified by intersections with other forms of inequality and oppression. For example, not all men benefit equally from patriarchy, and cannot be categorized solely as privileged or oppressed. In short, there is a different meaning to male domination when it is refracted through the lens of race, colonization and class oppression. In conclusion, analysis of DV in the refugee context requires a specific appreciation of patriarchy as it manifests through cultures as a way of ensuring that critiques remains focused on factors that place both women and men at risk. There is ample consensus that, although violence against women has historically been viewed as a feminist issue, the solution must ultimately involve both women and men.