Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement: Understanding the Medicalization of Domestic Violence

University Of Illinois At Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

This project asks how processes of medicalization -- or the transformation of social problems into medical ones -- are at work in domestic violence cases. Domestic violence policymakers and healthcare providers engage in frequent debates about the best ways to screen, intervene with, and treat domestic violence victims. This study examines these debates and their implications for domestic violence survivors? lives through the concept of trauma. From federal funding directives to grassroots coalition strategies, the language and therapeutic practices of trauma infuse the field of domestic violence advocacy. This research asks how the concept of trauma has transformed anti-violence politics since the 1970s, as well as how those politics impact domestic violence survivors when they seek resources for abuse. This research will contribute to sociological theories about medicalization while also responding to burgeoning policy debates in the domestic violence field about the contradictory relationship between anti-violence and medical work. Ultimately, this study aims to link historical and contemporary processes of medicalization with victims? management of everyday life under conditions of inequality and violence. This research hypothesizes that the rise of medical discourses and treatments for domestic violence changes the ways in which victims understand and seek help for abuse. There are three central aims of the project: 1) to describe the historical changes that have linked feminism and medicine; 2) to explore how medicalization processes transform domestic violence services and advocacy; 3) to explain how domestic violence victims engage with the concept of trauma, both in explanations of their abuse and in their interactions with healthcare providers. The data collection involves the use of qualitative methods in three parts; 1) archival research will weave together the historical relationship between medicine and anti-violence social movements, as well as the rise of trauma discourse in both fields; 2) interviews with professionals in anti-violence and trauma fields are expected to demonstrate how the hybrid feminist-scientific concept of trauma is produced in professional practices; 3) interviews with domestic violence victims are expected to demonstrate how these historical processes and professional practices are lived by victims through their interactions with these helping systems. Overall the project seeks to understand the local and broader implications of the growing medicalization of domestic violence for victims and those who treat them.