Women's Studies Journal 20(1) 2006 : 11-31

This paper examines the impact of government funding on a Canadian transition house and a New Zealand refuge in terms of how it affected both the structural and operational arrangements of these two bodies as they developed policies and procedures to meet reporting requirements imposed by governments. It also looks at how this impacted on the experiences and expectations of the battered women seeking shelter and services. The research employs a case study approach undertaken between 1996 and 1998 on the Canadian transition house and the New Zealand refuge. Feminist ethnographic methods provided the opportunity to gather data on historical and organisational documents and data from focus group interviews. The author concludes that changes within the transition house and refuge, and the battered women's movement more generally, have resulted in a more hierarchical structure and rule-based system of service delivery. There has been a decline in the movement of a sharing and supportive environment, and the opportunity for women to be more closely involved with policy development and procedure in a collective way has diminished as they have adapted to the operational requirements of governments.

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