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3 - Domestic Violence and Community Organizing in India

from Part I - Organizing and Activism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2024

By
Suvarna V. Menon  and
Nicole E. Allen
Edited by
Brian D. Christens
Brian D. Christens
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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Summary

Efforts to respond to women’s risk of domestic violence in India have resulted in two kinds of systemic responses. First, the formal or institutional response has focused on systems reforms to better meet the needs of survivors. Second, nongovernmental and grassroots responses to domestic violence have emphasized supporting survivors through survivor-centered and empowerment-based approaches. These include primary prevention through community activism aimed at transforming community norms, survivor empowerment, capacity-building, and community mobilization. This chapter describes an exemplary effort by “Shakti” (pseudonym), a grassroots agency based in India, to engage in community mobilization that facilitates psychological empowerment of survivors and community empowerment processes to respond to domestic violence in rural communities in the Delhi National Capital Region, India. The case example draws on data collected by the authors in 2017. Community organizing efforts like those described in this chapter along with individual-level work with survivors can together play an important role in fueling counter-narratives that facilitate disclosure of violence and support survivors.

Keywords

domestic violencecommunity empowermentpsychological empowermentcommunity mobilizationempowermentsystems change
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Community Empowerment , pp. 83 - 109
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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