Doctoral Dissertation: From the Private to the Public: Investigating the Structural Determinants of Domestic Violence in a Slum in Mumbai

经济上处于不利地位的妇女由于贫穷、识字率低和总体上处于边缘地位，特别容易遭受暴力。布朗大学的一名文化人类学家的论文研究项目将通过访谈、观察和分析二手数据，研究印度西部马哈拉施特拉邦孟买东北部城市贫民窟家庭暴力的结构性决定因素。本研究将调查妇女在特定文化背景下表达和理解家庭暴力的方式；赋予妇女经济权力在多大程度上减少了妇女对家庭暴力的易感性；妇女的出生和婚姻家庭在维持或减轻家庭暴力方面的作用；婚姻关系的具体动态可能使一些妇女倾向于殴打妻子，而不是其他妇女；宏观机构和社会网络在社区一级预防家庭暴力的能力，最后是国家、州和市政系统处理家庭暴力问题的方式。这一项目将补充关于发展中国家性别与健康和赋予妇女权力的现有文献，并将提请注意妇女对暴力的看法和用来对付暴力的战略，这可能与西方环境中妇女所采用的战略明显不同。这个项目的智力价值源于它对未被充分研究的人群的研究；从它能够增加在边缘环境中赋予妇女权力的理论基础；它采用了一种创新的研究方法，将统计分析与定性研究相结合。更广泛的影响包括社会机构对了解印度基于性别的暴力的背景决定因素的兴趣。赋予妇女权力是国家发展的组成部分，也对生育率、儿童健康和生殖健康等主要人口结果以及其他社会指数产生重大影响。通过这项研究收集的证据可以被社会服务机构用来设计和实施干预方案，通过基于社区的倡议来预防和减轻家庭暴力。

Economically disadvantaged women are particularly vulnerable to suffer violence because of their poverty, low rates of literacy and their overall marginality. This dissertation research project by a cultural anthropologist at Brown University will examine the structural determinants of domestic violence in an urban slum in northeastern Mumbai (Bombay) in the western state of Maharashtra, India using interviews, observations and analysis of secondary data. This research will investigate the ways in which women articulate and understand domestic violence in the specific cultural context; the degree to which economic empowerment of women decreases women's susceptibility to domestic violence; the role of women's natal and marital families in perpetuating or mitigating domestic violence; the specific dynamics of the marital relationship which may predispose some women to wife-beating and not others; the capacities of macro institutions and social networks at the community level to prevent domestic violence and finally the ways in which national, state, and municipal systems are addressing issues of domestic violence. This project will add to the existing literature on gender and health and women's empowerment in developing countries and will call attention to women's perceptions of violence and strategies used to cope with it which may differ markedly from those employed by women in western settings. The intellectual merit of this project stems from its examination of an understudied population; from its ability to add to the theoretical underpinnings of women's empowerment in a marginal setting; and from its use of an innovative research methodology integrating statistical analysis with qualitative research. Broader impacts include the interest of social agencies in understanding the contextual determinants of gender-based violence in India. Women's empowerment is integral to the nation's development and also has significant effects on major demographic outcomes such as fertility, child health and reproductive health as well as other social indices. The evidence gathered through this research can be utilized by social service agencies to design and implement intervention programs that will prevent and mitigate domestic violence by using community-based initiatives.