Feminist theorisations of gendered violence have consistently challenged the borders between ‘public’ and ‘private’ violence with a sustained focus on violence that occurs within family structures. Rather than accepting this violence as private or ‘just a domestic’ dispute, feminist scholarship and activism has revealed the structural and public nature of intimate gendered violence, citing patriarchal, economic and social inequalities as the foundations. In many countries now, domestic and family violence are seen as matters of national concern and responsibility.

However, in this paper, we examine the ways in which women in immigrant and refugee communities may face internally constructed ‘borders’ when they experience domestic and family violence. We outline social and political structures that mobilise both the contested borders of public/private violence and punitive border regimes in ways that impact women’s safety and rights. Using Australia as a case study, we explore the ways in which discourses about ‘other’ cultures and the withdrawal of supports for refugee and asylum seeker communities intersect to limit women’s access to family violence support and safety pathways. We argue that these conditions operate to create internal cultural and social borders where assumptions about some communities (such as attitudes to gender equality or cultural practices such as dowry payments) are used in conjunction with visa and immigration regimes to exclude women from access to services and supports. Conditions on partner visas and a recent national inquiry about ‘dowry abuse’ are critically interrogated revealing how they seek to re-privatise the gendered violence that women experience.

Professor JaneMaree Maher is Professor in the Centre for Women’s Studies and Gender Research, Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. She is Deputy Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre. With Professor McCulloch and Associate Professor Segrave, the Centre’s research focuses on family and gendered violences and how state and social institutions such as the criminal justice system and migration and border regimes reinforce patterns of gendered inequality and disadvantage. The team works extensively with the Victorian State Government on recommendations from the landmark Royal Commission into Family Violence (2016).

Professor Jude McCulloch, jude.mcculloch@monash.edu
Associate Professor Marie Segrave marie.segrave@monash.edu

Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, Social Sciences
Monash University