| Popis: |
In the year 2001, I began researching the relationship between domestic violence, family relations, and women's rights awareness in rural Northwest Ecuador. I have also been involved in the development of a community-based health project in the region, as well as other local initiatives for health and social justice. Over a ten-year period, violence has come unexpectedly in and out of focus in my work due to shifting perceptions of its legitimacy in the eyes of community members. While intimate partner violence has long been accepted as a private and generally unremarkable affair, newly circulating discourses of human rights and citizenship are prompting people to increasingly question this view. Some forms of intimate partner violence are now intentionally labeled violencia doméstica (domestic violence) and contested as such. For this reason, many Las Cruces inhabitants now hold the state accountable for protecting women and children, even though legal and judicial resources remain scant. In this paper, I discuss the ways that the politicization of violence as a violation of women's rights has rendered certain forms of violence more visible and contestable, while obscuring others. |
