Producing "Domestic Violence": Gendered Suffering, Women's Rights, and the State in Ecuador

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Graduate student Karin Friederic, supervised by Dr. Linda B. Green, will undertake research on the relationship between state and NGO penetration into a formerly isolated area and intimate partner violence in a remote area of coastal Ecuador. Both government agencies and NGOs have undertaken recent campaigns against domestic violence. The growing presence of state and non-governmental (NGO) initiatives has inspired new discourses of citizenship and human rights. The researcher asks if these discourses affect people's perception of the state's role regarding women's rights and family violence and under what circumstances people may choose to act upon new understandings of themselves as rights-bearers.To answer these questions, the researcher will conduct comparative ethnographic fieldwork in two communities with different levels of participation in state and NGO-sponsored initiatives. She will conduct formal and informal interviews, hold focus groups, and interview officials in state agencies and NGOS. Historical research and institution-based interviews will be utilized to determine forms of state and NGO involvement, changing laws and policies regarding domestic violence, and examine underlying human rights discourses. This yearlong study will build upon extensive preliminary research on gender relations and family health in the region . In all, mixed methods will be utilized to deepen understanding of the dimensions of family violence, to identify effects of human rights awareness over time, and to situate local experiences of violence in a national context. The research is important because intimate partner violence is a growing problem worldwide. Considering high rates of development and modernization in places worldwide beset by intimate partner violence, understanding the effects of human rights awareness in resource-poor areas is critical to advancing scholarship and designing appropriate responses. Thus, this research will contribute to the anthropological literature on family violence and theory about local effects of state institutions, and contribute significantly to the education of a social scientist.