Domestic Violence at the Margins: Readings on Race, Class, Gender, and Culture (review)

Domestic Violence at the Margins, edited by Natalie Sokoloff with Christina Pratt, is an impressive comprehensive compilation of accessible and innovative pieces on domestic violence. Contributors apply an intersectional approach to examine women's experiences of violence in diverse contexts and through both academic and activist approaches. Essays in the volume expand the gender-based approach to domestic violence by examining how race, sexuality, immigration, cultural background, and class also shape experiences of violence in the U.S. The last section of the anthology moves beyond academic research to include essays addressing more practical issues in social service models and practices.

The contributors and their methodologies are almost as diverse as the populations included in this book. Disciplines represented include psychology, sociology, social work, psychology, law, criminal justice, nursing, and education. The authors address domestic violence from both quantitative and qualitative approaches and by using both primary and secondary sources. As a whole, the book moves beyond unicausal theories of domestic violence to explore multiple factors that intersect in women's lives to heighten women's vulnerability to violence. The book ultimately provides a clear view of the connections between individual experiences of domestic violence and the societal structures that facilitate violence against women and other marginalized groups. It also moves beyond the dominant focus on episodes of physical violence in domestic violence literature by defining battering as including but "not limited to, physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual violence and control" (1).

The book is divided into three parts and twenty-four chapters. Each part begins with a brief overview of its chapters to underscore the importance of each contribution, and each chapter begins with an abstract that emphasizes connections among the themes in different chapters and presents general questions to encourage the reader to make additional connections among the parts and chapters. The chapters in Part I, "Frameworks and Overarching Themes," use an intersectional approach to address domestic violence broadly in order to demonstrate the varied ways in which women experience violence. Michelle Bograd's chapter, "Strengthening Domestic Violence Theories," sets up the foundation for later chapters by discussing and providing examples of how an intersectional approach results in a more holistic understanding of how domestic violence may affect different communities.

Several of the chapters in Part II, "Culture, Resistance, and Community," are case studies of specific marginalized communities in the U.S. The communities or groups represented in this section include Jewish, African-American, Native American, Latina, white working class, and incarcerated women. Sherry Hamby's chapter challenges oversimplifications applied to Native Americans through an overview of the circumstances and differences that inform women's experiences of domestic violence in various Native American communities. Margaret Abraham's chapter focuses on South Asian women's strategies of resistance to examine how even in the face of structural constraints, South Asian women in the U.S. find and create ways of coping with and resisting violence. The chapters in this section exemplify the strength of intersectional approaches by showing how women's multidimensional identities within specific communities both inform women's experiences of violence and are called upon by others outside of these communities to discriminate against those women.

The chapters in Part III, "Structural Contexts, Culturally Competent Approaches, Community Organizing, and Social Change," discuss culturally competent models of community-based prevention, intervention, and treatment that challenge mainstream criminal justice approaches to domestic violence, which commonly revictimize members of marginalized communities. Traci West's chapter addresses some of the ways in which African-American churches can play a significant role in anti-violence efforts in their communities. Neil Websdale and Byron Johnson's chapter examines Kentucky's Job Readiness Program and approaches woman battering "structurally as an economic, public health, labor, housing, human rights, and educational issue" (413). The chapter emphasizes that women must be provided with the space and tools to provide for themselves and their children if they...