Chasing Geborgenheit: A Life Course Understanding of Domestic Violence Survivors’ Leaving Process in China

Jiaying Lin, Lingnan University

This article examines how cohort effects, age effects and linked lives constrained domestic violence survivors’ choices about whether to seek help through the legal system or not. This research design builds on Silbey and Ewick’s (2000) three interpretative frames of legal consciousness as well as Engel’s (1984; 2016) studies of injury victims who did not invoke the law in the American context. To extend the discussion to domestic violence survivors’ leaving process in China, this research adds a life course perspective to stress that early life experiences, changing socio-legal contexts and marriage norms influence survivors’ legal consciousnesses and direct their course of action. I interviewed domestic violence survivors and lawyers in the family and marriage area in China, and I found that the post-1960s and post-1970s birth cohorts positioned themselves as before the law, while the post-1980s and post-1990s cohorts positioned themselves as being with the law. The post-2000s cohort started out as with the law but became disillusioned with the response from legal actors and the judicial system. The position of being with the law may not translate to entering the legal system in China because of the barriers created by intergenerational relationships and economic disadvantage.

Keywords: Families, Unions and Households, Gender Dynamics, Qualitative data/methods/approaches, Older Adults and Intergenerational Relations

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