Margaret Abraham

Speaking the Unspeakable

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank all the South Asian Women who participated in my research and the following South Asian Women’s Organisations: Sakhi for South Asian Women, SEWAA (Service and Education for Women Against Abuse), Apna Ghar, Maitri and Sneha. Without their support this work would not be possible. I am grateful to Kanta Khipple and Usha Ari for sharing their home with me on my trips to Chicago and Philadelphia.

Isolation as a Form of Marital Violence: The South Asian Immigrant Experience

Isolation is an important factor in marital abuse among South Asian immigrant families. It lends itself to the invisibility immigrant women experience based on their ethno-gender status in the United States. Drawn from unstructured interviews with abused South Asian immigrant women, three different levels of isolation are explained. The first level involves the quality of a womans relationship with her spouse; the second is related to the frequency and quality of social interaction with friends, relatives, and coworkers; and the third is explained in terms of the level of access to and participation in the ethnic community and other formal institutions.

ETHNICITY, GENDER, AND MARITAL VIOLENCE South Asian Women's Organizations in the United States

Based on a two-stage questionnaire with six South Asian organizations that focus on South Asian women, this article examines the factors that determined the creation of such organizations. Through an analysis of their organizational ideology, structure, goals, and strategies, the article demonstrates their relevance and the instrumental role they play in shifting marital violence among South Asians in the United States from a “private problem” to a “social issue.” Central to the analysis is how ethnicity and gender intersect in addressing social change. These organizations are a growing social movement.

Domestic Violence and the Indian Diaspora in the United States

The profile of the current Asian Indian population in the United States is largely an outcome of immigration policies and practices. For most immigrants, including Asian Indians, gender, class and ethnic relations get reshaped as women and men adapt to life in a foreign country. This article discusses domestic violence among the Indian diaspora in the United States with insights from the staff of the community-based womens organisation, Sakhi for South Asian Women, in New York City. It provides a general overview of the Indian population in the United States and explains how immigration policies and regulations factor into immigrant womens experiences of marriage, migration, and marital and domestic violence in a community that has been perceived as a model minority in the United States. Notions of cultural identity, family values and gender, as well as the forms of marriage and violence, are briefly examined. Emphasis is placed on the pivotal role played by Sakhi for South Asian Women in transforming domestic violence from an individual, private matter into a public issue.

Making a difference: Linking research and action in practice, pedagogy, and policy for social justice: Introduction

The origins and chronology of linking research and action are complex and cannot be attributed to any single discipline or any part of the world. People within and outside academe have linked research and action. In this introductory article, we begin by briefly tracing the methodological background to linking research and action, focusing particularly on action research, participatory research, and feminist research in order to situate the research presented in this monograph issue of Current Sociology. We then provide an outline of the articles that showcase through specific case studies how sociologists link research and practice in diverse contexts including health, culture, education, labor, migration, violence against women, and polling. We end by commenting that linking research and action has important implications for knowledge creation, distribution, shifting power relations for achieving social change, and, ultimately, challenging social structures for social justice.

Addressing Domestic Violence in Canada and the United States: The Uneasy Co-Habitation of Women and the State

Feminist sociologists and activists have drawn attention to how violence against women is linked to structural and cultural factors that subordinate women, mainly intersecting inequalities and limited rights. Mobilization by the Battered Women’s and Anti-Violence Movements, media attention, legislation, and policy have increased awareness and support to address violence against women. However, activists and researchers have also critiqued the problems with invoking the power of the state. The authors interrogate the role of the state in addressing domestic violence, especially in the context of immigration in the neoliberal era. More specifically, they examine how domestic violence, as legal and policy discourse, has been framed in Canada and the US, and the resulting forms of intervention. Through a critical literature review the authors show how this framing impacts immigrant and racialized women facing domestic violence. The article highlights problems and gaps in the respective discourses, as well as indicates possibilities for change.

Interrogating gender, violence, and the state in national and transnational contexts: Framing the issues

In order to situate this monograph issue this introductory article starts with a brief, selective, and global overview of violence against women in diverse contexts, followed by the editors’ own approach on violence against women and the state. Focusing on cross-cutting themes, the introduction presents and discusses the articles included in this monograph, demonstrating the role of the state in addressing sexual violence and domestic or intimate-partner violence in neoliberal globalized societies around the world. By doing so, it problematizes state regulation of gender itself. Furthermore, it indicates some limitations but also possibilities of the forms of state involvement in addressing violence against women. The editors argue that the relationship of the state to violence against women is complicated, historical, and context contingent, with multiple implications for women’s lives, including barriers to citizenship. The interface with the transnational level is also examined, in terms of the influence of states beyond their borders, and transnational influences on state policies.

Transforming place and belonging through action research, community practice, and public policy: Comparing responses to NIMBYism

While solidifying class inequalities on a transnational basis, corporate globalization often disrupts power regimes locally. Such disruptions can generate site-specific contention across social differences that solidify the physical marginalization or exclusion of less powerful groups at the local level. In the United States one form of local contention that results from corporate globalization is strong, organized opposition to the presence of marginalized and vulnerable immigrant populations. This article focuses upon NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) encountered in two cases where community organizations sought to create spaces and services for immigrants. The first section provides a multidimensional analytical framework centered around the concept of boundary contention. The second section lays out the methodological approach to the collaborative endeavor. The third section provides lessons learned for developing strategic practices that can assist organizations to reverse the disempowering dynamics of corporate globalization by either removing or expanding symbolic, relational, and physical boundaries in local contexts.

Ethnic Routes to Becoming American: Indian Immigrants and the Cultures of Citizenship

immigrants. This study is particularly significant because until now little research has been done in this area. The assimilation of Mexican immigrants and their entrance into U.S. society and the economy have been studied, as have a variety of factors that help to shape that process. But this work gives serious attention to the ways in which Mexican Americans’ attitudes have facilitated or created obstacles to the process in their encounters with newcomers. Ochoa argues that those encounters may be situationally specific, but are also affected by structural factors, dominant ideologies, and cultural commonalities. In other words, any particular interaction—between teacher and student, real estate agent and client, barber shop owner and neighbor, priest and layperson— might represent the dynamics of any single person-to-person contact. However, U.S. colonization, dominance, and discrimination have impacted each Mexican immigrant in one way or another, and will in turn affect the ways in which earlier immigrants deal with newcomers. In addition, economic, political, and social structures in place may foster benevolent relationships between the two—or lay a foundation for conflict. Some individuals opt to hold on to personal accomplishments, sometimes at the expense of immigrants attempting to accomplish similar goals for themselves. Others use the commonality of experiences and objectives in their efforts to forge a greater solidarity. Ochoa devotes much of her attention to the role of the educational system. It is where children are socialized and where their parents meet with members of existing social structures. It is through education that themes of colonialism, identity, and political power might reinforce traditional behaviors or create new dynamics. And it is where language holds a prominent place, forcing new examinations of English, Spanish, and bilingualism in the development of relationships and acculturation. Ochoa is right to pay attention to the dynamics of education. Whether or not one agrees with all of Ochoa’s conclusions, her arguments are indeed persuasive. From time to time, her approach may seem somewhat disjointed. But that is due to the natural complexity of the subject. Because each subtopic is related to another, it is understandable that Ochoa chooses to weave them through various chapters. The first sections of her book are direct in providing essential historical and political context demonstrating the nature of U.S.-Mexican relations, and the evolution of laws that affect migration and migrants. Here she lays a strong foundation for a deeper examination of the community of La Puente. Becoming Neighbors is a valuable study on many different levels. First, Ochoa’s method of blending the use of secondary sources with primary documents and personal accounts can be used as a model for scholars in a variety of disciplines. She effectively uses the knowledge gathered from previously published works to provide context for this new research. Second, her comprehensive and thorough examination sheds light on the complex relationships that have evolved in La Puente. This complexity is unique, as any historical development or episode is, but illustrates the nature of community relationships elsewhere. And very important, Ochoa allows personal accounts to give greater meaning to her work. She demonstrates a keen ability to keep an academic study human. The quality of her research should appeal to graduate students, professors, and scholars in a number of areas related to sociology or Latino Studies, but her presentation makes this work interesting for undergraduates and others who may be new to her subject.

Book Reviews : Fanny M. Cheung, Malavika Karlekar, Aurora De Dios, Juree Vichit-Vadakan and Lourdes R. Quisumbing (eds.), Breaking the Silence: Violence against Women in Asia. Hong Kong: Equal Opportunities Commission. 1999. 209 pages

But in no society do women fare as well as men. Women are gaining ground in health and education terms but still have a long way to go in sharing political, social, economic and cultural empowerment and opportunities. They continue to suffer high levels of violence and abuse, and are treated differently in law. These disadvantages are the outcome of gender discrimination-historical, cultural and traditional-religious dogmas and practices, mindsets that refuse to change, as well as resistance to notions