Combatting coercive control in Covid-19: Perspectives from British Pakistani NGO workers in East London

这项拟议的研究将是一项关于强制性控制的法律保护的民族志研究，强制性控制是英国最普遍的家庭暴力形式，也是2015年《严重犯罪法案》下的刑事犯罪。通过关注在东伦敦的家暴非政府组织工作的妇女的经历，本研究将产生关于强迫和控制如何在多重有争议的家庭环境中展开的观点。本项目以叙述和讲故事的政治（Cruikshank 1992; Jackson 2004; Das 2007）以及传记中断和重新融合（Day 2007）为基础，在a)与Covid-19相关的强制禁闭和b)根据2015年严重犯罪法案将强制控制定为刑事犯罪的背景下，调查胁迫和控制的生活现实。非英语移民妇女获得司法救助受到结构性不平等的阻碍，如缺乏经济手段、对支持服务的了解以及语言技能（包括国家当局要求的英语和官僚语言）（Merry 2006; Fassin 2013; Fuchs 2020）。通过密切关注他们的言语、行为和沉默（Das 2007），本研究考察了非政府组织工作人员的亲密生活，他们作为国家和社区之间的中间人（Webb 2012），在“荣誉”和羞耻概念的基础上获得权利，跨越公共和私人之间的界限（Day和Goddard 2010），并对整合传记的规范要求提出质疑（Day 2007）。它提出的问题是：在强迫和控制的情况下，这项法律如何影响妇女的日常生活？家庭暴力的经历是如何通过言语和沉默来传达的？试图以自己的方式理解痛苦（Jackson 2004）或言语暴力的潜在风险（Das 2007），这揭示了什么？那么，非政府组织的工作人员如何在干预家庭暴力的情况下把握道德规范呢？人类学家研究了人们如何通过以下方式将自己理解为道德或政治：a)解决他人的痛苦；b)认识到自己群体的痛苦；c)在类似情况下与他人对话（Day and Goddard 2010; Webb 2012）。该项目旨在通过在东伦敦沃尔瑟姆森林区和雷德布里奇区非政府组织提供乌尔都语支持的妇女的观点来建立这些文献。南亚的经验直到最近才被纳入关于家庭暴力的社会科学研究（Ahmed et al 2004; Dasgupta 2007; Kallovayalil 2010），很少有研究考察其核心的不平等（Puwar and Raghuram 2003; Gill and Brah 2014; Bi 2020）。这项研究的灵感来自于基层行动主义和批判种族理论中的废废主义方法（杜波依斯1935；洛德1979；泰勒2016；维塔莱2017），这些方法强调需要a)恢复性司法和b)资源重新分配，从监狱工业综合体转移到受家庭暴力影响的妇女和儿童的福利上。通过参与观察、生活史访谈和话语分析，本研究将探讨这些女性如何同时扮演非政府组织工作者、亲属、邻居和活动家的角色，与法律程序相关，抵制或再现等级制度，并设想解决方案。该项目反对西方女权主义对女性主体的分析，认为通过简单地以摆脱从属地位的欲望为中心，赋予女性主体一种规范地位。该项目建立在对穆斯林女性世界的人类学研究的基础上，展示了女性在家庭、公共和政治环境中创造和掌控自己命运的多种方式（Mahmood 2004; Abu Lughod 2015; Elliot 2021）。

This proposed research will be an ethnographic study of legal protections around coercive control, the most prevalent form of domestic violence in the UK and a criminal offence under the Serious Crime Act 2015. By focusing on the experiences of women working at domestic abuse NGOs in East London, this research will generate perspectives on how coercion and control unfold in multiply contested domestic settings. This project builds on scholarship on the politics of narration and storytelling (Cruikshank 1992; Jackson 2004; Das 2007), as well as biographical disruptions and reintegration (Day 2007) to investigate the lived realities of coercion and control in the context of a) Covid-19 related forced enclosure and b) the criminalisation of coercive control under the Serious Crimes Act 2015. Access to justice for non-English speaking migrant women is obstructed by structural inequalities such as lack of economic means, knowledge about support services, and language skills, both English and bureaucratic language required by state authorities (Merry 2006; Fassin 2013; Fuchs 2020). Through close attention to their words, actions, and silences (Das 2007), this research examines the intimate lives of NGO workers who act as brokers between the state and community (Webb 2012), navigate access to rights alongside notions of 'honour' and shame, traverse boundaries between public and private (Day and Goddard 2010), and contest normative demands on integrated biographies (Day 2007). It asks: how does this law affect the day-to-day lives of women in situations of coercion and control? What are the ways in which experiences of domestic abuse are communicated through words and silences? What does this reveal about the risks involved with trying to understand suffering in one's own terms (Jackson 2004) or the potential for violence in spoken words (Das 2007)? How do NGO workers then navigate the ethics of intervening in situations of domestic abuse? Anthropologists have examined the ways in which people come to understand themselves as ethical or political by a) addressing the suffering of others, b) recognising the suffering of their own groups, and c) in dialogue with others in similar situations (Day and Goddard 2010; Webb 2012). This projects aims to build on this literature by generating perspectives from women providing Urdu language support at NGOs in the East London boroughs of Waltham Forest and Redbridge. South Asian experiences have only recently been included in social science research on domestic abuse (Ahmed et al 2004; Dasgupta 2007; Kallovayalil 2010) with few studies examining inequalities that lie at its core (Puwar and Raghuram 2003; Gill and Brah 2014; Bi 2020). This research takes inspiration from abolitionist approaches in grassroots activism and critical race theory (Du Bois 1935; Lorde 1979; Taylor 2016; Vitale 2017) that emphasise the need for a) restorative justice and b) resource re-allocation away from the prison industrial complex to welfare for women and children affected by domestic violence.Through participant observation, life history interviews, and discourse analysis, this research will explore how in their simultaneous roles as NGO workers, relatives, neighbours, and activists, these women relate to legal processes, resist or reproduce hierarchies, and envisage solutions. Arguing against western feminist analyses of women's agency that accord it a normative status by simplistically centring desires to be free from subordination, this project builds on anthropological scholarship on Muslim women's worlds that demonstrate the multiple ways in which women create and steer their destinies in home, public and political settings (Mahmood 2004; Abu Lughod 2015; Elliot 2021).