This study draws insights
from discursive psychology to explore moral discourses of spousal violence in
Ghana. In particular, it investigates how sociocultural norms and practices are
invoked in talk of perpetrators and victims as moral warrants for
husband-to-wife abuse in Ghana.
Semi-structured focus group and personal
interviews were conducted with a total of 40 participants: 16 victims, 16
perpetrators, and eight key informants from rural and urban Ghana.
Participants' discursive accounts suggest that husbands have implicit moral
right and obligation to punish their wives for disobedience and other
infractions against male authority in marriage. Both perpetrators and victims
build their talk around familiar normative discourses and practices that
provide tacit support for spousal violence in Ghana.
While perpetrators
mobilize culturally resonant and normative repertoires to justify abuse, blame
their victims, and manage their moral accountability; victims position
husband-to-wife abuse as normal, legitimate, disciplinary, and corrective.
These moral discourses of spousal violence apparently serve to relieve
perpetrators of moral agency; prime battered women to accept abuse; and
devastate their agency to leave abusive marital relationships.
The findings
contribute to our understanding of how cultural and social norms of spousal
violence are morally constituted, reproduced, and sustained in talk of
perpetrators, victims, and other key members of society.
Purchase full article at: http://goo.gl/MPIofh
By: Adjei SB1.
- 1Aarhus University, Denmark bstephen@psy.au.dk.
More at: https://twitter.com/hiv_insight
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