Abstract
Whereas violence against women has been on the rise, it has remained absent from the political agenda. Kathleen Staudt’s and Roberta Villalón’s activist-based research fills this gap by engaging in the critical analysis of women’s experience with domestic violence. The interdisciplinary theoretical framework the authors adopt is founded on a feminist of color perspective. Specifically, Staudt’s and Villalón’s discussion focuses on the impact that the framing of violence has in shaping the relationship between institutions and the women seeking their services. However, these authors go beyond structuralists or essentialistic arguments. Instead, they address the particularities of women’s experience and the role that agency plays in their interaction with society’s structures. Furthermore, throughout the discussion, Staudt and Villalón remain conscious of the way their “insider” and “outsider” role may bias their critical ability and thus utilize a variety of data collection methods to ensure the validity of their analysis. Overall, whereas violence against women is a sensitive topic, Staudt’s and Villalón’s unique narratives maintain the dignity of the women’s experiences.
In Violence and Activism at the Border, Staudt engages in the critical deconstruction of violence in the Mexican border town of Juárez. Staudt’s analysis is strongly founded on an interdisciplinary border studies framework. Throughout her study, Staudt adopts a global neoliberal economy perspective, which effectively addresses the global, institutional, and historical forces that are responsible for the uniqueness of violence in Juárez.
In this study, Staudt critiques the little consideration that violence against women has received from society, but specifically, from the Mexican government. By adopting a macro-level lens, Staudt points to what she argues is the failed role of political and bureaucratic institutions in attending to the stresses created by the constant social construction of gender. Throughout her work, Staudt encourages the adoption of a comparative institutions framework that allows one to simultaneously address the actions taken by nation-states and the role that social movements have on them. For example, Staudt suggests that it is the lack of structural coalitions between Mexico and the United States that have perpetuated, and to some extent even maximized, violence in Juárez. Moreover, Staudt engages the reader in a conversation on the relativity and dynamism of power at different levels of analysis. Unfortunately, she fails to provide enough evidence to support her argument that male resentment―product of a “failed masculinity”―is responsible for the violence against women in Juárez.
Beyond examining the structural context, Staudt examines the impact that macro-level institutions have on the consciousness of individuals. By presenting gender as performance, Staudt (2008) clearly shows how activism in Juárez has challenged existing frames and thus, the legitimization of violence. In fact, Staudt’s analysis underlines how the process of framing is not only dynamic and contextual but also transformative. And yet, while the author acknowledges the role of discourse and of individual agents in addressing violence in Juárez, some groups remain absent from her in-depth discussion. In this analysis, the role of men and the church―both critical forces in mobilizing individuals and producing consciousness-raising―is not included.
Moreover, Staudt proficiently emphasizes the role that culture plays in the social construction of gender and the development and legitimization of violence. However, she challenges previous border studies of violence for adopting a culture of poverty argument and for neglecting to address the experience and dignity of women. Furthermore, Staudt overtly contests the monolithic representation of Mexican women as passive. Staudt recognizes differences among women of different generational status and through her activist research gives individual and powerful examples of the complexity of women’s behavior shaped by institutional and situational contexts.
Finally, and remaining truthful to her activist origins, Staudt shares her role in developing binational collaborations to develop workshops where participants were able to gain different forms of capital. Throughout her discussion, Staudt (2009, 30) identifies not only the “opportunity structures” that influenced violence toward women in the region but also the “missed opportunities” that have made it part of everyday life. In the end, this study successfully fills a gap in the literature and thus brings attention to a region (“Borderlands”) and an issue (violence against women) that have often been neglected.
On the other hand, in Violence against Latina Immigrants: Citizenship, Inequality, and Community, Roberta Villalón presents an engaging analysis of the experience of Latina immigrants who have faced domestic violence in the United States. Just like Staud’s research, Villalón’s study is based on her activist work for two years as a part-time volunteer intern at the Organization for Refugees of America’s (ORA’s) Battered Immigrant Assistant Program and which uncovers the structural and social barriers shaping battered Latina’s experience. The challenges between immigrants and the nonprofit workers are analyzed in debt, thus pointing to the role that different structures and identities play in shaping people’s experiences. Overall, the author addresses how dominant values—providing power and privilege to some—are embedded in the system.
Throughout the book, Villalón is critical of the role that large-scale institutions have played in framing people’s experiences. Boldly, she brings into the discussion the role that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA) have had in the construction of “citizenship” and “nationhood” that reinforce racial and ethnic hierarchies. Unfortunately, while there are several examples of internalized racism, racism does not become a central part of the discussion in Villalón’s work.
Additionally, Villalón makes a strong case on the role that institutions play in perpetuating the privilege of a few through the actions of the nonprofit workers. These “gatekeepers,” Villalón argues, have internalized the racial, social, and cultural inequalities that are present in the United States. Specifically, she demonstrates how discrimination goes beyond sex, citizenship, and race and also cuts across class making “cooperation” between the institution and its clients a subjective relationship. By doing so, the author becomes critical of institutions and particularly of nonprofits that have become commoditized. And yet, while many institutional, social, and cultural obstacles exist, Villalón notes that when women become aware of existing possibilities, they change the way they look at their reality. By doing this, Villalón’s analysis challenges the stereotypical image of battered Latinas as passive and instead shows their agency.
Largely, Villalón provides an engaging description of a system that perpetuates the inequalities it was created to solve. Through her activist work, Villalón describes how immigration acts and the institutions responsible for their implementation reproduce the existing hierarchies and systems of privilege that cut across immigrant status, social class, education, and sex. Nonetheless, Villalón does not attempt to provide a universalistic description, but rather just a “part of an unfolding story” (13).
Overall, whereas Staudt’s and Villalón’s analysis are largely influenced by the conflict and symbolic interactionist frameworks, their arguments recognize how racial and ethnic discrimination are embedded in the organization’s structure and legitimize the labeling of populations as pathological. Furthermore, and regardless of the structures that restrain individual behavior, both authors acknowledge the agency exercised by institutional and noninstitutional agents. Staudt explores the relationship between social movement protests at the grassroots level and their impact in the development and implementation of policy in Juárez, Mexico. By conducting a “holistic and relational” grounded study that includes binational cooperation between institutions and individuals, the author critically addresses the multilevel and dynamic nature of the relationship between activism and public policy. Furthermore and inspiringly, Villalón’s work embeds a touch of optimism; she believes that change is possible. How? Villalón suggest a Marxist approach: overcoming the false consciousness of nonprofit workers that have failed to recognize the power that their agency may have in transforming the institution and the implementation of the processes. The key for Villalón is “consciousness-raising, organization, and leadership” (145). The issue then becomes, is Villalón too idealistic? Is change really possible?
In the end, by engaging in the active deconstruction of structures of privilege and their role in preventing or allowing for domestic violence to become part of the political agenda, Staudt and Villalón uncover the conscious, unconscious, overt, and covert ways in which agency is exercised. In doing so, they address the importance of capital and adaptation in shaping the level of agency observed. By going beyond “abstract notions of agency” and giving concrete examples that are placed within a historical and social context, the authors uncover the multidimensionality of women’s agency and the role that the multiple patterns of oppression have in restraining it.