Discusión y conclusiones

The discussion above has been aimed at outlining the initial assumptions and understandings with which I began this project. Central to that project has been the attempt to trace how and why these ideas developed in the specific form they took at that time. While I knew (on an academic level) that these assumptions would inevitably flavour and direct my research, my political and philosophical commitments were such that their ‘rightness’ went largely unquestioned. In many ways, I still believe them to be so – although now only with the addition of an expansive range of ‘ifs’, ‘buts’, ‘ands’, and ‘maybes’.

Vital to these assumptions, feminism and the notion of patriarchy were accompanied by great faith in the idea of personal (women’s) lived experience as the window to

understanding the effect of this form of social organisation on their lives. These grew directly from my academic work. Pivotal too were the knowledges I held of what

8 _{A comprehensive discussion around chosen methods is provided in the following chapter.} 9 _{A point confirmed more recently in the work of Audrey Mullender and Gill Hague (2001).}

concepts such as ‘resilience’, ‘abuse’, ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’ meant, including the specific behaviours constituting each of these. Some of these also emanated from the academy, the remainder from my experience as a Refuge worker – although these sources have tended to blend in my memory. As if these did not provide sufficient complexity, I also added to the mix a veritable plethora of ‘common-sense’ ideas born out of my own experience as a wife/mother/woman.

The powerful influence which this combination exerted on the original shape of the research continues to be explored – a process I believe now could be endless. Several central assumptions grew out of my training as a Refuge worker and my experience working with victims of intimate partner abuse. Firstly, that the best (only) way to deal with an abusive relationship was to leave, a ‘knowing’ which remains influential today (Dunn & Powell-Williams, 2007; Yoshihoka & Choy, 2005; Wuest & Merritt-Gray, 2008). My work at Refuge had included working with women in the community – those who remained in their own homes and had not utilized the safe house. However, even with these women I (and I suspect most workers) assumed (‘knew’) that they had either already separated from their abuser and simply hadn’t required emergency shelter, or were in a process of decision-making that would eventually result in separation. The second taken-for-granted ‘knowledge’ was that few women managed to separate permanently the first time. The ‘rule of thumb’ mentioned in our training was that it could take up to 7 attempts to finally leave – and that we should take heart in this and not become discouraged at our ‘failures’. Therefore, in working with women and in framing up this project I began from a premise that leaving was an emotionally fraught,

protracted, back and forth process that required significant periods of time to both achieve and recover from10_{. This is perhaps most vividly illustrated by my decision to}

restrict participation in this project to women who had been free from abuse for at least two years prior.

10 _{Some of the potentially problematic implications of such stereotypical understandings are clearly} outlined in the work of Gill Hague (2005) and Mullender & Hague (2005).

At the time this decision was made to protect participants from being unduly traumatized by recounting of recent events. On reflection however this looks suspiciously like more of an indication of my own understandings of how the leaving process was experienced and accomplished. For instance, I was convinced by the repeated warnings in the literature that few women manage a clean break immediately. I found descriptions of potentially extended leave-return cycles (Kirkwood, 1993) and of the way in which many women go on to become involved again and again with abusive partners persuasive (Dobash & Dobash, 1979, 1998; Walker, 1984). This was/is a pattern frequently reported by those working with abuse survivors (Loseke, 1992) and certainly mirrored much of my own experience with victims of abuse. Conversely though, but an understanding I seldom applied to my Refuge work, a great many women do not follow either of these trajectories, successfully exiting violent circumstances and going on to lives free of abuse (Davis, 2002; Hoff, 1990; Merritt-Gray & Wuest, 1995; Wuest & Merritt-Gray, 1999 & 2008). Strangely, despite this latter knowledge, both my Refuge work and the framing of this research were underpinned by a ‘worst case scenario’ attitude.

Pessimism aside, these were ideas that made a great deal of sense to me, offering an understanding congruent with both my firsthand knowledge as a Refuge worker and the accounts offered by clients of their experiences. Although their accounts were not

homogeneous, many overall themes remained constant – most especially those concerned with notions of survival, coping and healing. All of this fit comfortably within the

languages of feminism and resilience, opening space for me to ask my original research question:

What was it that enabled some women to free themselves from abusive relationships when so many others seemed unable to do so?