Violence, the Body and the Spaces of Intimate War

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the relationship between domestic violence and rurality through the theoretical lens of intimate war. It argues for a geopolitical perspective that foregrounds issues of space and scale and emphasises the ‘entwined geographies of corporality and violence’. Drawing on recent empirical research in the UK, I explore the ways in which the body is contained and controlled both physically and emotionally through intimate war. In doing so I focus on three key aspects of domestic violence: hidden geographies, tactics of entrapment and surveillance and the wounding of the body. The context of rurality provides a set of spatial and social characteristics that need to be taken into consideration in understandings of the experience of domestic violence and the responses by agencies and professionals.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the domestic survivors and service providers who agreed to be interviewed as part of my research. I appreciate the time they devoted but am especially grateful to their willingness to talk about emotionally very difficult issues with such clarity and openness. I would also like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for their financial support in the form of a Research Fellowship (RF-2014-276). I am also grateful for the inciteful comments of two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1. Throughout the paper, I have used the term victim/survivor. This recognizes the issues surrounding the politics of ‘naming’ and the, specifically, the labelling of those experiencing DV as ‘victims’ when they frequently prefer to be identified with moving on from a state of victimization through recovery (see Donovan and Hester 2010; Kelly, Burton and Regan 1996).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust [RF-2014-276].