Harmful weapon? Empowering protection? Or just a piece of paper? : discursive constructions of protection orders by New Zealand lawyers working with partner violence

Pond, Rachel

Harmful weapon? Empowering protection? Or just a piece of paper? : discursive constructions of protection orders by New Zealand lawyers working with partner violence Pond, Rachel; Morgan, Mandy - Unpublished

This item is only available from the National Collective of Independent Women's Refuges Inc.

This article examines how lawyers make sense of domestic violence and the legal response to such violence. Interviews with 18 lawyers working in the domestic violence area were analysed using a feminist poststructuralist framework. The authors identify several discourses used by the lawyers, and argue that some discourses help victims by focussing on their needs, while others hinder victims because they shift the responsibility for violence away from the perpetrator. The authors also identify the use of discourses that have mixed implications for the victim, such as the view that protection orders can worsen the situation by angering the abuser.


CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
GENDER
JUSTICE
LEGISLATION
PROTECTION ORDERS
WOMEN
INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE