Domestic Violence Counseling in Rural Northern China: Gender, Social Harmony, and Human Rights. (March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Xie, Lijia; Eyre, Stephen L.; Barker, Judith
• Is Part Of: Violence against women. Volume 24:Number 3(2018)
• Page Start: 307
• Page End: 321
• Publication Date: 2018-03
• Subjects: domestic violence -- rural China -- rural Chinese women; Abused women -- Periodicals; Women -- Crimes against -- Periodicals; Violent crimes -- Periodicals; Femmes victimes de violence -- Périodiques; Femmes, Crimes contre les -- Périodiques; Crimes violents -- Périodiques; 362.8292
• DOI: 10.1177/1077801217697207
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1077-8012

Abstract

Domestic violence (DV) affects over a third of Chinese women in a relationship. Focusing on ethnographic data from six staff members and six DV survivors at a rural, state-affiliated women's center in China in 2010, this article relies on Henrietta Moore's notion of the poststructuralist gendered subject to examine how the staff draw on discourses about gender and social harmony in persuading women to stay in their marriages, rather than on human rights discourses that emphasize survivor safety. It shows that DV survivors are frequently sent back to dangerous homes where their health is placed at risk.