‘We are here to put the past behind us’: violence and welfare governmentality in Finnish family law

ABSTRACT

Family justice occupies a complex space where public social (welfare) law intersects with private family law. These two legal domains bring distinct perspectives on subjects, rights, responsibilities, and entitlements. This article draws on interview data and previous research to examine welfare governmentality in family law, particularly in Finland and more broadly in the Nordic welfare states. Using intimate partner violence (IPV) as the lens of analysis, the article studies family law’s exclusionary structures that render particular forms of loss resulting from the relationship non-addressable. The rationales embedded in law, as evident through welfare governmentality, significantly impact the production of specific types of vulnerable, autonomous, gendered, and relational subjects. Moreover, these rationales shape our understanding of the law’s operations, categories, truth claims, knowledge development, and regulatory practices. Notably, family law-as-knowledge falls short in recognising violence and the subsequent losses suffered by victims within the contexts of financial settlements and child custody and access. This failure can be attributed to conceptual distinctions within family law, an overriding focus on the child’s interests, and the law’s national orientation.

KEYWORDS:

• Family justice system
• marriage
• child custody and access
• intimate partner violence
• governmentality
• law and welfare

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to the research participants who shared their experiences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the research project ‘Children Abroad: A Relational Analysis of Finnish Child Protection and Welfare in Transnational Contexts [CARELA]’, funded by the Finnish Research Council 2020-2024, decision no 33055; the Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS exploratory workshop series: Transnational Childhoods, Transnational Rights); and the research consortium ‘SUOJATIE - Transnational Child Protection: Knowledge and Service Paths’ funded by the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Decision 14925/2022.