Examining women's agency in managing intimate partner violence and the related risk of homelessness: The role of harm minimisation

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has a detrimental impact on women and children's emotional, physical and social well-being and has been identified as one of the most common contributors to women's experiences of housing instabilities and homelessness. Women affected by IPV often experience a great level of uncertainty around housing solutions when trying to leave an abusive partner. This study explores women's responses to IPV and the related risk of homelessness through women's narratives (n = 22) in Queensland, Australia. Of particular interest are women's decisions and actions to minimise the impact of IPV as well as homelessness on their and their children's safety and well-being. Findings reveal that women's agency in relation to harm minimisation can take various forms, including the decision to stay with, leave or return to an abusive partner. The data offer insights into women's strategic attempts to manage IPV and the related risk of homeless while trying to minimise the harm associated with one and the other. Implications for understanding women's agency in managing IPV and the related risk of homelessness and providing adequate support mechanisms to improve women and children's social, emotional and physical well-being are discussed.

Keywords:

• intimate partner violence
• homelessness
• agency
• women
• children

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Queensland has a population of 4.33 million. On Census night 2011, 70% of these identified as Australian-born, including 1.8% Indigenous Australians (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2011).

2. The information in brackets refers to women's age at the time of the interview, whether they identified as Indigenous (I), non-Indigenous (NI) or having migrated to Australia as an adult (M) and the number of children in their care at the time of the abusive relationship.

3. A discussion of different policy frameworks and its legislative challenges in different jurisdiction goes beyond the scope of this paper. For more detail on holistic and comprehensive schemes enabling women to remain in the family home (see, for example, Spinney, 2012; Breckenridge, Hamer, Newton, & valentine, 2013).

4. As currently only seen in New South Wales (see Breckenridge et al., 2013).