Black women Violence and Abuse: Working at the intersections of race, gender and other oppressions

About this event

Black British women are absent or less present in research on violence/abuse. The missing-ness or minimal presence is not only within the field of violence research, but in mental health, maternity care, history and so on. Unsurprisingly when Black women research participants are opportune to share their narratives they are compelled to account for all the missing-ness. We focus today on a study with Black African Caribbean British women on child sexual abuse (Wilson, 2016) where participants relayed multiple racisms compounding experiences of abuse. In a study on domestic and child abuse (Kanyeredzi, 2018) women shared experiences of becoming racialised and out-of-place in public spaces, being body and hair-texture shamed, silenced, and expected to be resilient and strong in the face of abuse, despite being quiet, shy and bookish. We propose that a normalised acceptance of missing-ness, being left-out and out-of-place, erodes consideration of equity, justice and citizenship for Black British women who experience multiple forms of oppressions. What ensues is a mistrust for avenues to speak and seek support from statutory and voluntary agencies.

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