Testimony as Justice: An Anti-Carceral Transformative Feminist Response to Sexual Violence and Abusive International Marriages

Abstract

Abstract: Sexual and domestic violence have long been a reality for Asian American women. This article examines the history and strategies of a Hmong American feminist social movement called Building Our Future (BOF) to understand how one group of Asian American women have devised creative methods to address sexual and domestic violence in their families and communities. Exploring the concept of “testimony as justice” against violence and enacting long-term social transformation, especially as it manifests through the exploitative practice of abusive international marriages, this article shows how BOF challenges dominant and carceral responses to sexual and domestic violence. BOF’s insistence on addressing the root causes of sexual and domestic violence through their strategic usage of social media, community dialogues, and personal testimonies reveals how Asian American feminist movement building can be sustained by engaging a wide array of constituencies. These strategies challenge the neoliberal female subject seeking justice through the criminal legal system and, instead, situates justice within the context of communal transformation. The article ultimately argues that BOF’s strategies of “speaking out” about abusive international marriages outside the context of the criminal legal system while seeking to transform the entire Hmong American community constitutes a unique site for understanding anti-carceral transformative feminist visions of testimony as justice for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.