Domestic Relationships Research Articles

Domestic Violence: The Beginning, Continuation, or Final Act in a Criminal Career?

This paper uses a life-course perspective to examine the extent to which domestic violence is part of a criminal career. Offenders who commit domestic violence as their first criminal act are compared to offenders for whom domestic violence is merely a continuation of a criminal career and for whom the domestic violence relationship provides an opportunity for the commission of still another type of offense. In addition, there is an examination of patterns in offending and reoffending for males and females.

A description of social participation in working‐age persons with aphasia: A review of the literature

Background: Communication impairments following stroke impact on social interactions and life experience. To look beyond body functions and activities into actual performance in life, knowledge about participation of working‐age persons with aphasia is necessary. Aims: To describe what is known in the literature about participation in working‐age persons with aphasia after stroke and to assess the quality of these studies, a systematic literature search was performed for the period 1960–2005 in Pubmed, CINAHL, Psychinfo, and Cochrane. The journal Stroke (1970–2005) was searched by hand, as well as the online content of the journal Aphasiology (1999–2005). Search terms were derived from the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Aspects of domestic life, interpersonal interactions and relationships, education and employment, and community, civic, and social life were included. Three investigators assessed the relevance of the identified studies using selection criteria. Main Contribution: From 1592 hits, 18 articles were analysed. Comparison between studies was very difficult, due to a lack of consistency in the conceptual framework used in the studies, small sample sizes, and a large variety in instruments. However, this review reveals a decrease in domestic life. Interpersonal interactions and relationships changed after aphasia onset, with shifts in contacts from friends to professionals, shifts in roles as partner, family member, parent, friend, citizen. A decrease in employment activities is reported and return to work is often to a less demanding level. No studies were found describing community, civic, and social life. Conclusions: Participation in different aspects of life is diminished in persons with aphasia. However, knowledge about this is scattered and fragmented. Many researchers have not clearly defined the concept of participation. Data should be interpreted with extreme caution and no firm conclusions can be made. There is a need for further research in this area, specifically clarifying the concepts used.

A New Way of Living and Relating

ABSTRACT Is silence always consent? Perhaps not when it comes to situations of life and death; perhaps not in situations of domestic violence. What is the good news of Christianity in such situations? As Christians, how are we called to respond? This sermon looks at the classic “turn the other cheek” text in Luke 6:17–31 in light of the reality of abuse. What exactly is Jesus calling us to in this scripture passage? Do we “offer the other [cheek] also” when we are stuck by a loved one? No. This text is not about obeying a “rule,” it is about a whole new way of living and relating in the world that does not include abusive relationships. This new divine way calls us to all participate in bringing an end to domestic violence and abusive relationships.

James Courage, 1903–1963

James Courage is best known for his short stories and for the seven novels he wrote between 1948 and 1961. Despite living in England from the end of his secondary schooling until his death, New Zealand provided the setting for his most successful writing. Courage also took an active interest in the New Zealand literary scene, meeting and corresponding with many of its most prominent figures. His fiction reworks a variety of autobiographical scenarios, ranging from an early interest in the domestic relationships and specific New Zealand settings of his childhood, through to his later concerns with mental illness and its treatment, and homosexuality. One of his novels was banned in New Zealand because of its homosexual themes, and it is on this incident and more general questions about his homosexuality that most recent attention paid to Courage has focused.

Perpetrators of Violence and Abuse in Lesbian Partnerships

Scholarship, policy and practice relating to domestic violence have all seen many changes in the recent past. The definition of domestic violence is often wide ranging describing physical violent within an adult (married) couple to the inclusion of intergenerational abuse and violence. As a result of feminist interventions a gender-based approach to domestic violence is now well established. Most research using this model shows that the majority of victims are women and most perpetrators are men. This impacts upon the policies, initiatives and service provision. One consequence is that it fails to explore the possibility of women’s different experiences of domestic violence. The point of departure for this paper is that it fails to take account of domestic violence in lesbian partnerships. Using data generated by way of an annual analysis of counselling cases of generated by a German lesbian specific social services agency and data from focussed interviews with 20 lesbians who have been violent to their lesbian partners this article offers a range of new insights into the nature and experiences of domestic violence in same sex domestic relationships and considers the significance of this data in relation to policing and other modes of intervention to bring that violence to an end.

Rawls and Walzer on Non-Domestic Justice

This article illuminates the relationship between John Rawls' and Michael Walzer's accounts of non-domestic justice by tracing its connection to their domestic relationship. More precisely, it (a) places the celebrated positional shifts that characterize the latter (i.e., as is generally accepted, Rawls took a hermeneutic ‘turn’, and Walzer a universalist one) within the context of the fundamental justificatory tension between their projects which endures: reason vs trust; and then (b) juxtaposes this justificatory tension and their non-domestic political prescriptions. Such contextualization is important to the clarification of the pair's non-domestic relationship since it enables the observation that despite this enduring justificatory tension these political prescriptions are remarkably similar.

The Battered Women’s Syndrome: A History and Interpretation of the Law of Self-Defense as it Pertains to Battered Women who Kill their Husbands

This paper seeks to address the role of the battered women’s syndrome in criminal court cases where battered women have killed their husbands in self-defense. A historical analysis of law pertaining to domestic relationships and violence reveals the male biases imbedded in the law and the obstacles women face in seeking equality and justice in the legal system. 
 After a brief description of the development of self-defense law and Lenore Walker’s “battered women’s syndrome”, court cases starting mostly from the mid-1970’s during the second wave of the women’s movement are examined. Legal criteria for self-defense are then analyzed along with important precedents that trace the emergence through a series of court cases of legal opportunities to use this psychological condition to support pleas for self-defense. In addition, important precedents are studied that have been made over the past few decades permitting expert witness testimony in the courtroom to explain this psychological theory as it pertains to the case. 
 The latter part of the paper deals mostly with controversies surrounding the use of the battered women’s syndrome in the courtroom and the current state of self-defense law. I conclude with a proposal for reformation of expert witness testimony and for redefining legal terms in the criteria for self-defense.

Contemporary Feminist Perspectives on Social Contract Theory

Abstract. This paper explores two feminist contributions to the analysis of the social contract tradition, comparing the political philosophy of Carole Pateman with the moral theory of Jean Hampton, to ask two questions. First, which points must feminists continue to argue in their critique of the social contract tradition today? The second question is: Can feminists actually draw anything from the social contract tradition today? It argues that Pateman's critique of contractarianism continues to be useful when read in the context of her analysis of “self‐ownership” and subordination rather than as a rewriting of the social contract. Hampton's deployment of a Kantian test for the failure of respect for personhood within domestic (and other) relationships does not undermine Pateman's position. Consideration of how such an ideal can be understood as potentially compatible with Pateman's perspective raises issues about the radical potential within claims for equal respect for personhood. In Hampton's work, widespread “test failure” can be used to indicate that political action rather than moral analysis is required. Hampton assumes that those employing the test are able to abstract themselves sufficiently from their current position to imagine what it would be to be treated as a person. It is argued that this “moral test” should be envisaged as being asked in concert with others, at which point it has the potential to become political action.

The impact of national culture and communication on exporter–distributor relations and on export performance

Interorganizational relations have been a major focus of marketing scholars in the past 2–3 decades. In this study, we explore the impact of national cultural differences, a factor that is unique to international relations, on behavior variables in exporter–foreign middleman relations. Furthermore, we argue that communication has an extended role in international channel relationships, and that it influences relationship variables in a different manner than in domestic relationships. The study supports that national cultural distance and communication have significant impact on trust and commitment, that communication may influence variables differently than in domestic relations, and that the degree of commitment toward the foreign distributor or agent is directly related to the financial performance in that market.

Poverty, gender and migrancy: Lesotho's migrant farmworkers in South Africa

During the 1990s, eastern Free State vegetable farmers increasingly relied on migrants from neighbouring Lesotho for seasonal labour. This coincided with a major downsizing of the mine labour force in South Africa, hitherto the major employer of Basotho migrant workers. However, there was no simple process of transfer of unemployed migrants from the mining to the farming sector; rather, decisions were mediated by domestic relationships and household poverty in Lesotho. Basotho women and girls have been a major casualty of mine retrenchments and the drying up of remittances, and those with domestic skills but little formal training have been forced into the labour market, mainly domestic work in towns and labour on farms. This article examines the Basotho migrants' experiences and conditions of employment, the regulatory environment within which they are recruited and employed, and their future in the context of changing immigration and migration legislation in South Africa.

"Dirty Domestics and Worse Cooks": Aboriginal Women's Agency and Domestic Frontiers, Southern Australia, 1800-1850

"Dirty Domestics and Worse Cooks":Aboriginal Women's Agency and Domestic Frontiers, Southern Australia, 1800-1850 Lynette Russell (bio) When the Australian historian Jan Critchett implied, somewhat provocatively, that the "frontier" might be understood to run down the bed shared by an Aboriginal woman and a European man, she highlighted the importance of the domestic sphere and the intimate relationships between men and women in colonial Australia.1 In many ways the domestic sphere appears to be the most mundane of settings; there is an assumed immediate appreciation of what domesticity looks like at any given historical period. Within the home people are at their most intimate, possibly most vulnerable, yet the power structures within the home can invert those that are external to it. Women can, do, and did effect change within the home; they exercise power, control, and agency. This paper considers the domestic relationships of Aboriginal women and newcomer men who worked in the sealing industry of southern Australia after 1800. My concern is whether the home that Aboriginal women shared with the sealers functioned as a site of colonialism or in fact operated as a threat to the colonial project. It is my contention that the role of the home in the process of colonialism and the domestic relationships that emerged out of the sealing industry (c. 1800–c. 1850) is not easily categorized. These relationships were complex, multifaceted, indefinite, culturally porous, and often unstable, and changed over time in unexpected ways. Historical representations of these relationships have tended to focus on the "racial" aspects often at the expense of an exploration of how gender operated. My analysis uses Anne McClintock's framework in which "race, gender and class are not distinct realms of experience, existing in splendid isolation from each other. . . . [R]ather, they come into existence in and through relation to each other—if in contradictory and conflictual ways."2 In exploring the nature of these relationships and their inherent contradictions and conflicts it is essential to engage with notions of hybridity and liminality.3 Generally, Australian historiographers have resisted [End Page 18] using concepts such as cultural hybridity or liminality. I argue, however, that by exploring and speculating about the women's motivations for entering domestic arrangements with newcomer men and by considering the women's subjectivity and agency, it is possible to offer a theory of the role of the home in mid-nineteenth-century Australia.4 This challenges the assumption that native-newcomer engagements simply consolidated the power relations of the "white" men. My analysis reveals that the domestic arrangements that emerged between Aboriginal women and newcomer men working in the sealing industry destabilized the colonial process and enabled the women to maintain their culture. It is a common understanding that Australia was colonized without the consent of the "natives," contrary to substantial and unequivocal instructions from the British Colonial Office.5 Engaging with historical materials that emerge out of this illegal occupation implicates the researcher in the ongoing processes of colonialism. Such an implication is unavoidable, however, for it connects with and acknowledges the privilege that has enabled "white" academic research to provide a creative "enunciative space" for developing historical models.6 An imperative component of this is the need for researchers consciously to present their subject position and their relationship to the material.7 Elsewhere I have discussed at length how establishing my own Aboriginal heritage created an ambivalent and entirely uncertain subjectivity. As I have noted, I articulate an identity that states emphatically that this having (Aboriginal heritage) is different to being. I draw my heritage from both sides of the frontier, or perhaps as Critchett might observe, from the middle of the bed. For me, the binaries of indigenous/nonindigenous, native/newcomer, even colonizer/colonized are meaningless. At an intellectual and personal level, this issue was further developed a number of years ago when I attended a family funeral and met my father's cousins. Like my father, these men were of Aboriginal and European descent; their maternal great-grandmother was a Pallawah (Aboriginal Tasmanian) woman who lived on the Bass Strait Islands and undertook sealing activities with her European "husband."8 I naively characterized her as...

Correlation between adenylosuccinate lyase (ADSL) gene polymor-phism and inosine monophosphate acid (IMP) content in domestic fowl and genetic relationship between red jungle fowl and domestic fowl

This study investigates single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the adenylosuccinate lyase(ADSL) gene in variety chicken breeds, including Recessive White chickens, Silkies chickens, Baier chickens, Tibetan chickens and two red jungle fowls. Primers for exon 2 in ADSL gene were designed based on the chicken genomic sequence and a SNP(C/T at 3484) was detected by PCR-SSCP and DNA sequencing. Three genotypes within all breeds were found and least square analysis showed that TT genotype birds had a significant higher inosine monophosphate acid (IMP) content than TC (P < 0.01) and CC (P < 0.05) genotype birds, TC genotype birds had a little higher IMP content than CC genotype birds, but the difference was not significant. We proposed this SNP site correlated with IMP content in chickens. A neighbour-joining dendrogram was constructed based on the Nei's genentic distance. The genetic relationship between Chinese red jungle fowl and Tibetan chickens was the nearest, whereas Baier chickens were more closer to Silkies chickens. The Chinese red jungle fowls were relatively closer to the domestic fowls, whereas Thailand red jungle fowls were relatively diverging to the Chinese native breeds. These results supported the theory concerning the independent origins of Chinese native fowl breeds.

Introduction: Political Linkage and Political Space in the Era of Decolonization

The continuing importance of Kenya's institutional colonial inheritance has been underestimated because the impact of decolonization on Kenya's formal political institutions has rarely been systematically addressed. Consequently, there is a pressing need to reevaluate the structure of government in the colonial and postcolonial periods in a manner that takes a critical perspective on the domestic relationship between government and opposition. In addition to introducing the papers that follow, this essay examines the factors that underpin the continued supremacy of the executive-administrative axis in the Kenya postcolony. It develops the twin concepts of political linkage and political space as tools to describe the political landscape of the colonial and postcolonial eras. Institutional factors, it is argued, must be central to any attempt to explain the longevity and eventual breakdown of KANU rule.

Methamphetamine use and violence among young adults

The current research analyzed the relationship between methamphetamine use and violence among young adults eighteen to twenty-five years old. Interviews were conducted with a sample of 106 respondents. The research was based primarily on in-depth, life-history interviews with individuals who used methamphetamine for a minimum of three months and who resided in Los Angeles County. Of the 106 respondents, 37 (34.9 percent) had committed violence while under the influence of methamphetamine. Males comprised two-thirds of the 37 respondents (N = 24). Of the total sample, 38 percent of males and 30 percent of females committed methamphetamine-related violence, respectively. Overall, the 37 respondents reported fifty-four separate violent events while using methamphetamine. Of these fifty-four events, thirty-three (61.1 percent) acts of violence involved domestic relationships, nine (16.7 percent) of the violent events were drug related, seven (13 percent) were gang related, and five (9.3 percent) involved random acts of violence (e.g., road rage, stranger assault). The findings suggest that methamphetamine use is a risk factor for violence. There was, however, no evidence of a single, uniform career path that all chronic methamphetamine users follow. Violence is not an inevitable outcome of even chronic methamphetamine use.

Personal injury compensation: no claim without pain?

Aims and MethodTo identify the experiences of patients pursuing a personal injury claim, we carried out a retrospective questionnaire survey.ResultsSixty-one patients from a regional traumatic stress clinic took part. Most were satisfied with the conduct of legal, medical and psychiatric personnel. Thirty-two (53%) reported that the legal proceedings had had an adverse effect on their health/well-being, and about a third reported an adverse effect on domestic relationships. Twenty-four patients (40%) were dissatisfied with the provision of information. More information about the whole legal process would have been welcomed by means of an information leaflet (n=57, 93%), a helpline (n=48, 79%), or a videotape (n=42, 68%).Clinical ImplicationsAlthough seeking redress may contribute to the patient's adjustment, this survey demonstrates that it is not a step to be taken without consideration. As part of their therapeutic management, mental health professionals should consider the implications of such a step with their patients.

Introduction: Political Linkage and Political Space in the Era of Decolonization

The continuing importance of Kenya's institutional colonial inheritance has been underestimated because the impact of decolonization on Kenya's formal political institutions has rarely been systematically addressed. Consequently, there is a pressing need to reevaluate the structure of government in the colonial and postcolonial periods in a manner that takes a critical perspective on the domestic relationship between government and opposition. In addition to introducing the papers that follow, this essay examines the factors that underpin the continued supremacy of the executive-administrative axis in the Kenya postcolony. It develops the twin concepts of political linkage and political space as tools to describe the political landscape of the colonial and postcolonial eras. Institutional factors, it is argued, must be central to any attempt to explain the longevity and eventual breakdown of KANU rule.

Racialization and Migration—Blurring the Boundary Between Family, Country, and the Environment: Roundtable on Global Woman

Drawing on research into the white South Africa migration from apartheid South Africa prior to 1990, this article explores the legacy of the racialized and gendered patterns of attachment and separation embedded within the triadic relationships among employer, domestic worker, and the child being cared for. It suggests that where the distinction between the personal and political is blurred to the extent that citizens are deemed responsible for practices that do not fit the image they wish to construct for themselves, the environment offers a less contested site of identification. The author concludes that underlying such migratory rationales as economics, physical safety, and political protest is the subjugated desire to distance from responsibility for racialization, a desire signified by the memory and reconstruction of early family–domestic worker relationships.

East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture ed. by Shilpa Davé, LeiLani Nishime, Tasha G. Oren

B o o k R e v i e w s 3 6 1 East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture. Edited by Shilpa Dave, LeiLani Nishime, and Tasha G. Oren. New York: New York University Press, 2005. 382 pages, $22.00. Reviewed by Joel M iyasaki University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign One of the most important roles of Asian American studies is to debunk the idea that Asian Americans play the role of the perpetual “other” in American society. Asian Americans exercise agency, and this agency appears often in mediums of popular culture. In this boom time of Asian American cultural pro­ duction, it befits the academy to evaluate Asian American cultural influences as they move from the fringe to the mainstream of popular studies. In East Main Street, editors Shilpa Dave, LeiLani Nishime, and Tasha G. Oren have organized a collection of seventeen essays that engage some of the most fascinating debates in present-day Asian American studies. East Main Street’s editors claim that Asian American studies’ traditional paradigms have often shied away from acknowledging the group’s immigrant origins and ethnic diversity. The essayists in East Main Street remedy these parochial weaknesses by moving the discussion of Asian American popular culture outside national borders, conventional canons of cultural expression, and ethnic exclusivities. The result is an eclectic group of essays organized roughly into sections focused on the global interchange of popular culture, the affects of history on popular culture, and how popular culture affects ethnic identity. Spatial limits make it impossible to adequately discuss the diversity of scholarship represented in these brilliant essays, but this review will highlight a few demonstrative offerings. In addressing the globalization of culture, Sunaina Maira argues that rave culture not only allows suburban youth to imbibe orien­ tal exoticism but also gives Asian American youth a medium to invent cultural traditions. In the section on history and popular culture, Victor Bascara claims that the unusual domestic relationships that existed in Filipino bachelor com­ munities— men in these communities created unique domestic roles for them­ selves in the absence of women— offer opportunities for queer analysis and popular representation. In another essay, Hiram Perez purports that mainstream popular culture has stolen Tiger Woods’s “Asianness” in order to hide a historic legacy of racial intolerance toward Asian miscegenation. The final section on identity construction and popular culture contains the editors’ offerings for the collection. Nishime offers an explanation about how part-Asian actors who deceptively play white characters, such as Keanu Reeves and Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk, open the possibility for alternative racial and queer readings of movies and television programs. Dave argues that the character of Abu on The Simpsons represents an example of “brown voice”—a racial accent reifying or complicating racial constructions. Oren specifies how popular depictions of Asian American anger in movies, such as Better 3 6 2 W e s t e r n A m e r i c a n L i t e r a t u r e F a l l 2 0 0 6 Luck Tomorrow, and comic strips, such as “Secret Asian Man,” allow Asian Americans to transcend stereotypes and create a more realistic space for themselves in popular depiction. East Main Street creates its own relevance by touching on an abundance of cultural mediums and themes. Scholars of film, literature, the Internet, music, and history can all find essays in which to sink their teeth. More important, this book is a must-read for scholars of Asian American popular culture because it imagines the field in so many creative and complex ways. Individuality Incorporated: Indians and the Multicultural Modern. By Joel Pfister. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004- 340 pages, $84.95/$23.95. Reviewed by Linda Lizut H elstern North Dakota State University, Fargo In Individuality Incorporated: Indians and the Multicultural Modem, Joel Pfister claims as his subject the making of the individual self. It would be more accu­ rate to say that he is investigating the historical change in the popular ideology of individuality and how this change, the result both of Freud’s radically new insight into depth psychology and the shift from producer-oriented to...

Methamphetamine use and Violence

The current research analyzed the relationship between methamphetamine use and violence. Interviews were conducted with a sample of 205 respondents. The research was based on life history interviews with individuals who used methamphetamine for a minimum of three months and who resided in Los Angeles County. Of the 205 respondents, 55 (26.8%) had committed violence while under the influence of methamphetamine. Males comprised two thirds of the 55 respondents (N=36). Of the total sample, 30% of males and 23% of females committed methamphetamine-related violence, respectively. Overall, the 55 respondents reported 80 separate violent events while using methamphetamine. Of these 80 events, 41 (51.4%) acts of violence involved domestic relationships, 28.6% (N=23) of the violent events were drug related, 8.6% (N=7) were gang related, and 11.3% (N=9) involved random acts of violence (e.g., road rage, stranger assault). The study findings suggest that methamphetamine use heightens the risk for violence. Everyone interviewed agreed that methamphetamine has clear abuse and violence potential. Having said this, it is crucial to state that there was no evidence of a single, uniform career path that all chronic methamphetamine users follow. Progression from controlled use to addiction is not inexorable. Furthermore, a significant number of sample members experienced limited or no serious social, psychological, or physical dysfunction as a result of their methamphetamine use. Most germane to this study, we found that violence is not an inevitable outcome of even chronic methamphetamine use.

A bishop's wife in Torres Strait: Joan Davies 1930–49

Joan Davies's relationship with her husband challenges the view that women performed in the merely private and subservient realm. Joan and her husband did not for long remain embedded in a domestic relationship of dominance and subordination. This Australian clergy marriage of the 1930s shows the development of a smooth harmony of interests, with the wife gaining from an experienced husband a new role and becoming his counsellor and organiser.