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FAMILY MATTERS:
COUNSELING SOUTH ASIAN IMMIGRANT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVORS IN A MORAL BORDER ZONE
by
Anita Kumar
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ANTHROPOLOGY)
May 2012
Copyright 2012 Anita Kumar
Object Description
| Title | Family matters: counseling south Asian immigrant domestic violence survivors in a moral border zone |
| Author | Kumar, Anita |
| Author email | anitak@usc.edu;anita.kumar001@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Anthropology |
| School | College of Letters, Arts And Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2012-03-27 |
| Date submitted | 2012-05-04 |
| Date approved | 2012-05-04 |
| Restricted until | 2012-05-04 |
| Date published | 2012-05-04 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Mattingly, Cheryl |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Lutkehaus, Nancy Kondo, Dorinne Frank, Gelya |
| Abstract | ""Family Matters: Counseling South Asian Immigrant Domestic Violence Survivors in a Moral Border Zone"" is set in the clinical department at Safe Passage, a large domestic violence agency located in New York City. Tracing the conflicting discourses around suffering, and more broadly subjectivity, counselors and South Asian clients bring to the therapeutic encounter, I demonstrate how these differences produce sites of misunderstanding, configuring Safe Passage as a clinical borderland. Counselors espouse a predominantly psychological construction of subjectivity and expertise in which an essential notion of self corresponds with a progressive liberal politics. In other words, a ""successful"" client is one who learns to own her feelings, a process linked to secular humanist notions of self-care, agency, and empowerment. As such, domestic violence counseling comes to play a crucial role in transforming the political and affective subjectivities of South Asian immigrant domestic violence survivors. ❧ However, such endeavors fall short because South Asian clients primarily configure suffering and identity formation within a moral framework-""the good and honorable wife."" Will she once again re-inhabit those normative structures through which she defines moral and ethical subjectivity, but that are no longer accessible to her? This becomes her primary concern. In the midst of profound uncertainty, I contend that moral suffering and agency is reconfigured within ongoing, everyday action. Additionally, such embodied practice involves profound emotion-work. In highlighting emotion's fundamental role in shaping practical and moral experience, I problematize Safe Passage counselors' psychological discursive framework by expanding upon the social construction of subjectivity and affective formations. |
| Keyword | domestic violence; immigration; trauma; subjectivity; performativity; moral experience |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Kumar, Anita |
| Physical access | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume4/etd-KumarAnita-772.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Full text | FAMILY MATTERS: COUNSELING SOUTH ASIAN IMMIGRANT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVORS IN A MORAL BORDER ZONE by Anita Kumar A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ANTHROPOLOGY) May 2012 Copyright 2012 Anita Kumar |
