This opening chapter of the thesis has considered the process by which social problems become defined, and outlined the changes to legislation and public policy around intimate partner violence in Tasmania. It introduces the notion of a coordinated policy response and provides details of how this was
operationalised in Tasmania. It has also introduced a number of theoretical constructs which will be used throughout the thesis and organises the key theoretical perspectives within a research framework for the remaining chapters.
In Chapter Two, the literature on intimate partner violence is briefly reviewed for two purposes: initially, to situate this study in the body of scientific and expert knowledge from a variety of disciplines; and secondly, to use the literature as a data source to examine how intimate partner violence has been constructed by previous researchers. These constructs will be revisited in Chapters Four through Seven.
The third chapter of the thesis examines methods used in this study. As well as explaining the rationale for using a grounded research methodology and discourse analysis, this chapter details procedures for setting up the study including identification of the sources, sampling procedures, ethical
considerations and the process of negotiating access to research subjects and research sites. The data collection techniques of fieldwork (observation‐of‐
The Impact of Discourse on a Coordinated Response to Intimate Partner Violence participation, field notes and field interviews) are outlined. A detailed
description of a data set of risk assessment tools is also provided in this section. The following chapters examine the dominant storylines which emerged from the fieldwork. Chapter Four introduces the storylines used by police in Tasmania when discussing the details of the implementation of the policy. Police storylines include narratives about the process of conducting risk assessments and processing of police family violence orders as well as insights into how victims and offenders are constructed by frontline officers. Chapter Five introduces the storylines used by victim advocates around services for victims and how family violence matters are dealt with by the police and the Court system. Chapter 6 presents the voices of the legal fraternity (magistrates and solicitors in government and non-government services and in private practice.
The concluding chapter synthesises the storylines into three main discourses of 'risk management',' justice' and 'the genuine victim'. This chapter also
examines the efficacy of Hajer’s theory of discourse coalitions and discourse institutionalisation in understanding the how the discourses operate around intimate partner violence in Tasmania and argues that the justice discourse is dominant in this policy environment. However the genuine victim discourse, while it does not meet the overt requirements for a discourse to be encoded into institutional practice, operates in a more subtle and insinuating manner to
The Impact of Discourse on a Coordinated Response to Intimate Partner Violence permeate both the justice and the risk management discourses and is therefore also a significant and powerful component. The genuine victim discourse acts as a triaging method for both police and the justice system in their management of the response to victims and thus impacts on victim safety. The chapter also presents an overview of the strengths and imitations of the research as well as suggesting directions for further research.
The Impact of Discourse on a Coordinated Response to Intimate Partner Violence
2
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HE PROBLEM OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCEViolence against intimate partners has generated a vast literature over the past fifty years in disciplines as diverse as law, psychology, criminology, public health (medicine and nursing), policing, public policy and social work. This chapter provides the academic context, within which this research is situated, as well as a brief history of the legislative and policy responses to intimate partner violence which led to the development of the coordinated response in Tasmania.
Throughout this work the term intimate partner violence will be used to describe the phenomenon which elsewhere may be variously termed battering, wife/spouse abuse or domestic violence.
Table 3 Categories of intimate partner violence
Category Behaviour
Physical bashing, hitting, punching, kicking and using a knife or gun
Psychological, emotional or verbal
threats, harassment, and denigration of the partner’s capacity as a parent, person or housekeeper.
Social enforced isolation of the partner from social contacts and friends
Economic denial of money and access to a car etc
Sexual non-consensual sexual acts, perhaps including threat or use of a weapon
The term intimate partner violence offers a gender inclusive term to
The Impact of Discourse on a Coordinated Response to Intimate Partner Violence relationship from other forms of family violence. The term is equally applicable to marital, common law or dating relationships and homosexual relationships and understood to encompass a range of forms of violence – physical, emotional, sexual, economic – used to inflict harm within an abusive intimate relationship (Elliott & Shanahan Research (1988) cited in Mugford and Mugford, 1992).
It has been an important development to include a range of behaviours in the definition of intimate partner violence, recognising that the non physical forms of abuse can be more devastating than the physical, and more difficult to prove (McKinnon, 2008). These emotionally abusive behaviours, together with physical abuse, produce a climate of fear in which victims are terrified into compliance with their partner’s wishes.