Coercive control of money, dowry and remittances among Indian migrant women in Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines how coercive control underlies financial abuse as men re-interpret the gender of money, stripping it of its moral safeguards. Financial abuse denies women access and agency over money. It works through male reinterpretation of how money is gendered – that is the way men and women own, inherit, use, manage and control money. Recent Indian migrant women experience coercive control when the male control of money is exercised without responsibility for the welfare of the wife and children. The family boundary of money becomes a way of extorting money from the wife’s family. Sending money home, a sign of filial responsibility, becomes abusive when the wife is not consulted, leaving the family in Australia without sufficient money for their settlement needs. This paper extends the theoretical and geographic breadth of studies of family violence among Indian women in the diaspora.