Women, Violence and Tradition

Taking FGM and Other Practices to a Secular State

Tamsin Bradley

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781848139596
• eBook ISBN: 9781848139619
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Is the practice of FGM on the rise in the UK and US? Why? What happens to religious and cultural traditions when they are taken from their context into a new, often secular, state? Women, Violence and Tradition is a fascinating look into the life histories of women from ethnic minority communities in the West, focusing specifically on their experiences of under-researched cultural practices. The book gives close insight into how ethnic minority women today navigate between their religious and cultural traditions and the secular state in which they live. The volume illuminates areas of tension and difficulty when some women actively try to reform aspects of their tradition whilst remaining furiously loyal to their cultural identity. Other examples highlight how young women are choosing to endorse traditional practices, seeing this as an important way of demonstrating the legitimacy of their religion and culture in the face of increasing hostility. This brave and original book tackles the sensitive and controversial issue of female genital mutilation, as well as surveying changing attitudes and practices around marriage and divorce. Using a cross-cultural perspective the book draws on the views of activists and community organisations who work with women to confront injustice.

1

Researching Stories

Introduction

The methodology adopted by the researchers in the seven chapters to follow is the life or oral histories approach. This method literally involves asking people to orally recount either the whole story of their life or a period of it or even one particular experience. The approach begins with the researcher/story-recipient asking the informant/storyteller to, in whatever language they feel comfortable with, share with them their life experiences. From here on I will use the term ‘recipient’ to refer to the researcher who has recorded the life experiences of the informant, called the ‘storyteller’. The terms ‘recipient’ and ‘storyteller’ reflect the relationship at the heart of this methodology.

This approach seeks to destabilise the power relations between the person who shares their experience and the researcher who records and later analyses it, producing a written account for public consumption. The start is gentle and control is given to the storyteller to set the pace and tone of their own narrative. The storyteller decides what experiences they will share with the recipient and what they will hold back. This approach enables the storyteller to ease into the process of recounting her often personal experiences. After a time the storyteller often settles into a pace they are comfortable with and as they feel more secure with the situation so they feel more able and willing to share with the recipient personal insights.

As the stories recounted in this volume reveal, the process often begins with the storyteller offering the recipient some background details into the context of their lives. The recipient has asked that the storyteller begins with this detail as it not only gives a sense of the context of a person’s life, but also enables the process to start in a less intrusive place. As the stories shared here contest, it does not take long before a more personal and emotive narrative emerges. The women who share their lives in this volume are reassured by the presence of a recipient who is also female and from the same culture and community. It is naive to assume that sharing a gendered and cultural identity and living within the same community will remove all differences, but it does, as the storytellers in this research claim, make them feel more at ease and confident that their recipient will empathise with the more personal and harrowing aspects of their story.

The process of hearing and recording life histories cannot easily be squeezed into a limited time frame and the recipients have to let narratives emerge gently. This at times is difficult: when the storyteller seems to be lost in seemingly irrelevant detail, the recipient will find the urge to interject and redirect the storyteller hard to resist. In the stories recorded here the recipients have at times interjected and prompted the storyteller to refocus or delve into another area of their life history. These prompts have been necessary in order to preserve the key objective behind this volume which is to make visible BME women’s experiences of balancing and expressing their cultural heritage within the secular backdrop of the UK. In seeking out these experiences the study pursues an underlying political objective to create a platform for BME women to resist aspects of their culture and tradition; also to challenge the ways in which they have been misrepresented and negatively presented by individuals and state agencies outside of their immediate diaspora. This politicised intention, some might argue, compromises the way in which recipients have employed the life histories approach; however, the personal insights shared in the pages to come would not have emerged without it.

The stories shared have been edited, although as much of the narratives as possible have been included. The stories were all collected in the storytellers’ first language and so have been translated by the recipients. Each story focuses on a specific practice or experience covering between them marriage, divorce, female genital mutilation (FGM), dowry, domestic violence and pre-marriage relationships. From the outset the recipients made it clear that they wanted the storytellers to focus on a specific practice or experience but asked them to begin at whatever point in their life seemed appropriate to them; some therefore begin with childhood, others much later into adulthood and married life. What these stories share is an underlying narrative of patriarchy, which in some cases has led to violence. In other accounts, although no violence was experienced by the storyteller, they still relay feelings of confusion and anguish. As recounted in the Introduction, for many of the contributors the intention was not to write about violence or even negative and/or emotionally traumatic experiences, yet all the stories contain either narratives of abuse or fear of it, or accounts of tension and confusion over how to navigate around patriarchal traditions and values. The extent to which the narratives draw out these tensions and instances of blatant abuse surprised and shocked the recipients and, as their own testaments reveal, have made them more determined to continue the project of raising awareness of the pressures and abuse many BME women face in their daily lives.

This chapter will begin with a summary of the life history methodology and present expansive discussion about the analytical frame used to contextualise and engage with the stories. Included in this discussion on how to analyse life histories is consideration of the ethical difficulties this approach poses. Although the recipients’ experiences of doing this research are woven throughout this methodology chapter, the final section documents more directly the personal and professional journeys they went through.

Oral histories approach and ethical considerations

Storytelling is a natural part of the human experience. Human beings communicate meaning through talk. Oral historians have harnessed this tradition of transmitting knowledge and created an important research technique that allows the expression of voice. While storytelling has a deep history, the adaptation of this human process into a legitimated research method is relatively new. Oral history was established in 1948 as a modern technique for historical documentation when Columbia University historian Allan Nevins began recording the memoirs of persons significant in American life. (North American Oral History Association, as quoted by Thomson, 1998, p. 581)

Although for some time researchers, in particular anthropologists and sociologists, have conducted research on oral traditions, the methodology of oral history or life history research has emerged as a distinct way of collecting in-depth data. This approach enables much closer insights into the complexities of people’s life experiences than other techniques allow. There are no short cuts in this approach and story-recipients must be prepared to spend extended periods of time with their storytellers. In the context of this volume all the authors are part of or in some way connected to the communities they write about. This already established relationship with their storytellers has enabled, to some degree, a lengthy getting-to-know and trust period to be circumvented.

As stated at the start of this chapter, oral history research is essentially a collaboration between a recipient, who records the words of the storyteller, and a storyteller, who provides the account. The way in which these stories are presented and analysed presents interpretive challenges. In this volume the placing of stories side by side is in itself an act of interpretation, even when no analytical narrative is woven between them. The reader is encouraged to draw out differences and similarities and ‘imagine’ whose situation is worse, and think about how they may act in the same position. The conclusions readers may draw about the lives of the women whose stories they read could well harmfully reinforce essentialist stereotypes. To guard against this is the responsibility of the author, to whom the storyteller has entrusted their personal narrative. Once more, the positioning of the authors inside the communities from which they have drawn their stories means they also have their own experiences and knowledge to guide them in the process of representing the lives of women with whom they share at least some commonalities. Some of the chapters in this volume combine aspects of an oral history approach with qualitative interviewing. In some cases the recipient struggled to get their informants to embrace the idea of being a storyteller and had to use questions as prompts. The objectives of this study were such that the researchers also needed to focus on specific periods of their informants’ lives or on isolated experiences or practices. This need to circumvent the story to identify moments or instances in a sense contradicts the essence of the oral histories approach, but what emerges is a fluid combination of techniques. The recipients/authors move between approaches dependent on the feelings of their storytellers, and have facilitated an open process ensuring that important insights into the life experiences of BME women have been captured (see Harding and Gabriel, 2004).

In the final section some of the authors reflect on the journey they have been through in writing their chapters. These stories are self-reflective and reveal what they learnt about themselves and their communities as a result of using the life histories approach. The researchers’ reflections are filled with anxiety, not least because as the process went on they increasingly realised that they had responsibilities towards their storytellers. The recipients had responsibility to ensure the narratives shared would be written up accurately and sensitively. They did not want to misrepresent the life of any of the women who have displayed such courage in sharing deeply personal experiences. In some instances recipients became concerned that the literal retelling of a woman’s story was making the storyteller seem like a victim, crippled by passivity, accepting abuse as part of her everyday life. The story recipients felt concerned about the kind of homogenous assumptions that may materialise from what appeared – on first hearing some life stories – to be the passive acceptation of abuse. Concerns were also raised which have been discussed in the Introduction, that the images created of Bengali, Somali, Indian and Zimbabwean women could help to perpetuate stereotypes of BME women as victims. At the same time we hoped these stories would sensitively convey the complexity of how and why each woman confronted her hardship. We hoped to be true to the intersectional approach and ensure that culture and/or religion did not disproportionally come through as the dominant factor but that the array of interlocking dimensions that construct each woman’s experiences should be conveyed. Whilst listening to one of her storytellers Ebyan recalls that she was forced to think ‘why’? Why is this woman’s narrative endorsing her as a victim devoid of agency? In seeking out answers to this ‘why’ question Ebyan looks at the wider secular environment in which her informant lives. She considers her isolation and the lack of support available, the lack of alternatives. This woman is not a victim but has been forced to accept her situation because there are no viable alternatives. The storyteller in Ebyan’s Chapter 3 accepts that conformity to the patriarchal norm of her culture is necessary. In fact her conformity could be understood as a strategy she has reluctantly and consciously accepted.

Noorjahan’s stories of divorce reveal a pattern of violence, but the first two stories are contrasted against the last which reveals a supportive family that jumps in to restore their daughter and grandson’s life after many years of physical and psychological abuse. This is an important narrative to include because it offers optimism but also highlights that despite the overwhelming tales of violence, in the end the solutions can be and are sought internal to the diaspora community. Highlighting and making more visible these supportive responses challenges those who assume certain cultures do not offer women any escape routes from domestic violence.

Many stories in this volume highlight the lack of in-between spaces; BME women often remain loyal to their cultural heritage and so do not want to completely step into a secular space outside of their cultural and religious community. This reluctance is often due to fear that they may experience an even greater degree of abuse, racial as well as gendered. Yet at the same time most of the women whose lives are documented in this volume do want to experience greater freedom and make decisions for themselves about the lives they wish to lead, which fundamentally involves a life without violence, abuse and oppression. Many of the stories told here reveal a lack of space between culture, tradition and the secular values of the state, preventing BME women from restructuring their identities on their terms without the pressures of having to pacify the competing ideologies of secularism versus tradition.

The oral/life histories approach when used by the recipients to record information from within their own family can reveal insights previously unknown to them. Esline growing up knew of her mother’s experiences of domestic violence. She knew her father had turned violent but she did not expect to also hear that her grandmother had endured a violent marriage. This repeated pattern of domestic violence shocked her and caused her to reflect on constructions of Zimbabwean masculinities, and to ask questions about whether there is something present in the socialisation and cultural environment of Zimbabwean men that causes at least some men to feel violence is a legitimate means to control women. However, at the same time she recognises her responsibility to project a balanced view and not to give the impression that Zimbabwean men, more than others, are innately violent. She also wanted to send the message that there are many ways of being a man in Zimbabwean culture and to open up this discussion so that violence against women is condemned more publically within her diaspora community.

Given the ethical pitfalls involved in representing the lives of others, what then is the value of this approach? As the stories recounted here attest, this approach enables us to present the complex world BME women inhabit in the UK diapsoras. It also enables us close insight into how traditional values have transplanted themselves through migration and live on even in a secular state such as the UK. Understanding the challenges these traditional values present for women today can help us position sensitive challenges towards those aspects of tradition that perpetuate gender violence and oppression and offer more effective support.

Analytic frame and ethical precautions

The documenting of life histories is not in itself enough to constitute an original contribution; these stories have to be contextualised and analysed. Reading the chapters side by side reveals overlapping and repeated themes; pulling these out reveals common failures and inadequacies in the state’s responses to the problems BME women face. These common themes also point towards underlying structural constraints and inequalities that render women inferior to men and therefore vulnerable to abuse and control. Kelly (2005) describes a continuum of gender-based violence that is a useful and critical way of analysing all instances of violence against women (not only BME women). The concept of a continuum enables each experience to be unravelled according to the specific mix of factors that culminated in that woman’s abuse. The extent to which cultural and/or religious values and beliefs are visibly responsible will differ. Patriarchy represents the consistent foundation for all instances; variations occur only in the exact nature of the violent abuse suffered and the mechanisms through which it occurs. The analysis in this volume attempts to take things one step further and delve into the factors that enable patriarchy to retain dominance in each woman’s life. In other words, why is it that despite the evidence, activism and public condemnation of violence against women that patriarchy still retains its pervasive presence cross-culturally in women’s lives? The answer lies in the desire of a few to maintain power and authority, but the means through which this is achieved remains hard to expose. In other words, to remove violence against women requires the removal of patriarchy and this can only happen when the elite are finally prepared to relinquish power.

The stories documented here reveal the different ways that patriarchal oppression asserts itself and constrains the life opportunities of BME women. Whilst patriarchy affects the lives of all women, many BME women have additional dimensions that come together to construct their specific experiences of exclusion, racism and abuse. This volume pursues a feminist agenda to both raise the visibility of minority women but also to challenge the specific structural inequalities they face. Many of the recipients did not necessarily at the start of the process call themselves feminist, being wary of how that label is received and interpreted in wider society, often with hostility. However, as Esline in particular articulated, after listening to women tell their stories and reading those collected by the other authors, she became much more direct in not only calling herself a feminist but also an activist.

Esline documents her journey through the research process as a gradual awakening to parts of her own family story that she previously had no knowledge of. The new version of her childhood and specifically the details her mother shared about the breakdown of her marriage provoked a consciousness change in Esline. At one point she declares ‘I now call myself a feminist; I think I have always been one but now I realise it.’ Part of this awareness comes out of the increased research capacity she has gained through this process. She, as with the other researchers, has a new language and confidence to draw on to explain their responses to life experiences, and through which to communicate them, but also to position their practical intentions. The term praxis has been helpful in terms of offering the story-recipients a way of explaining and justifying what they are doing. Praxis denotes the relationship between research and activism and is an attempt to limit the extent of abstract theorising (see Tomalin, 2009). In the Introduction Ebyan shared her uncomfortable feelings listening to a woman’s story about a difficult marriage she felt she could not leave. Ebyan felt responsible for ensuring her storyteller did not come across in the text as a passive, weak victim. This concern stirred other questions, around the end purpose of this research. At a midway point we spent time talking about the objective of the collective research the volume represents. The work is intended to bridge a gap between research and practice and much of the literature reviewed in the Introduction is written by those who straddle this divide. The chapter written by Hannana also highlights the importance of demonstrating the positive value of this research.

Researchers’ reflections

All research processes represent journeys which themselves can be retold as stories. The retelling of my researchers’ experiences of collecting life histories for this volume reveals how, for each of them, this process has provoked considerable introspection and self-reflection, much of it painful – but all agree it has been worth it. I interviewed some of the researchers, both collectively and individually. I asked them to reflect on what they had learnt through the research process both about themselves but also in relation to the technical aspects of using a life histories approach. I began with the authors of chapters 2 and 4 who both describe themselves as African first-generation migrants. Isha migrated from Somalia when she was twelve and Esline from Zimbabwe in her twenties. Isha began in her session with Esline by stating: ‘Not everyone thinks the way you do; people don’t talk about it; in hearing other peoples’ stories you reflect on your own, imagining what life may be like for others.’ Immediately she highlights how reflective the process of life history research is. In listening to and documenting the life histories of others she was forced to evaluate aspects of her own.

Esline reflects on the importance of her own...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Editor
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• About the Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Researching Stories
• 2 Somali Memories of Female Genital Mutilation
• 3 Tales of Somali Marriage in the UK
• 4 Domestic Violence in Zimbabwe and the UK Diaspora
• 5 Narratives of Divorce amongst Bangladeshi Women Living in England
• 6 Transnational Accounts of Dowry and Caste Hindu Women Tell Their Stories
• 7 The Big Taboo: Stories of Premarital Relationships
• 8 ‘I Wish I’d Taken Her With Me’ The Lives of Black and Minority Ethnic Women Facing GenderBased Violence
• Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About Zed Books