Doctoral Dissertation Research: Access to Justice Among Victims of Gender-Based Violence

这个项目试图通过询问人们如何将他们的挑战视为需要法律的解决方案的问题来理解法律与社会变革之间的关系。报告以暴力侵害妇女行为为例，探讨了这一问题。尽管女权运动为提高对暴力侵害妇女行为的认识做出了重大努力，各地区政府也颁布了反暴力法，但暴力侵害妇女行为并不总是被视为一个重大的社会和法律的问题。暴力侵害妇女行为在世界各地持续存在，而且妇女在遭受暴力后可利用的法律的途径往往没有得到充分利用。该项目将调查妇女如何理解暴力的经历，以及这些理解如何影响她们寻求法律的求助的决定，孟加拉国提供了一个机会，以促进了解影响妇女在暴力案件中寻求法律的解决办法的决定的因素。该国在性别平等举措方面取得了显著进展，但暴力侵害妇女行为普遍存在，妇女诉诸司法的机会有限。此外，该国有几个国家和非国家法律的论坛系统，这为理解个人如何在暴力侵害妇女的案件中理解正义增加了一层复杂性。该项目将关于法律、性别、不平等和全球化的社会学文献联系起来，并利用孟加拉国一个城市和一个农村地区不同法律的论坛的人种学实地考察以及档案分析，研究从事与暴力侵害妇女行为有关工作的一系列行为者的看法。虽然对妇女的访谈将构成大部分数据收集工作，但研究还将审查帮助制定反暴力法律和政策的决策者、活动家、非政府组织官员和学者的观点。该项目还将采访妇女在启动暴力司法程序时直接遇到的国家和非国家法律的当局。这项研究将有助于法律和社会方面的学术研究，使人们了解如何理解、谈判和重新建立暴力侵害妇女行为和正义的概念，以及影响妇女在遭受暴力后决定诉诸法律的手段的结构性因素。该项目对致力于打击暴力侵害妇女行为的个人、组织和决策者具有现实意义，该奖项反映了国家基金会的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估而获得支持。

This project attempts to understand the relationship between law and social change by asking how people come to view their challenges as problems needing a legal solution. It examines this question using the case of violence against women. Despite significant efforts by feminist movements to raise awareness about violence against women and anti-violence laws enacted by regional governments, violence against women is not always regarded as a significant social and legal problem. Violence against women persists at high levels around the world, and often, the legal avenues available to women in the aftermath of violence remain underutilized. This project will investigate how women understand experiences of violence, and how these understandings shape their decisions to seek legal recourse.Bangladesh offers an opportunity to advance understanding of factors that shape women's decisions to access legal solutions in the case of violence. The country has made remarkable progress in gender equality initiatives, but violence against women is pervasive and women are limited in their access to justice. Moreover, the country has several systems of state and non-state legal fora that add an additional layer of complexity to understanding how individuals conceptualize justice in the case of violence against women. This project links the sociological literatures on law, gender, inequality and globalization, and uses ethnographic fieldwork in Bangladesh in one urban and one rural region with different legal fora, as well as archival analysis, to study the perceptions of a range of actors engaged in work relating to violence against women. While interviews with women will comprise the majority of data collection, the study will also examine the perspectives of policymakers, activists, non-government organization officials and academics who help to shape anti-violence laws and policies. The project will also interview state and non-state legal authorities that women directly encounter if they initiate judicial procedures for violence. This study will contribute to scholarship on law and society by adding to knowledge of how concepts of violence against women and justice are understood, negotiated, and re-created, and the structural factors that shape women's decisions to pursue legal recourse following experiences of violence. This project has relevance for individuals, organizations, and policymakers working to combat violence against women.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.