Peace within her borders? Faith discourses in the context of inter-cultural groupwork with women survivors

Janet Batsleer

doi:10.1921/gpwk.v15i3.583

Authors

Janet Batsleer

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1921/gpwk.v15i3.583

Keywords:

women, groupwork, inter-cultural, domestic violence, faiths

Abstract

This article presents an experience of inter-cultural groupwork with women survivors of domestic violence, drawing on the author’s experience of facilitating a support group as part of a wider research project ‘Domestic Violence and Minoritisation: Supporting Women to Independence.’ It considers the emergence and significance of religious and faith discourses as part of the groupwork. It explores the potential of such discourses to act as affirming women’s rights to live free from violence as well as their potential to act as patriarchal controls on women’s freedom. This is analysed in terms of attention to brokenness, to the experience of leaving home and migration and the creation of women’s space. Feminist approaches to inter-cultural groupwork with women are elaborated and extended and the importance of the politics of location to feminist groupwork is explored.

References

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