Violence, Colonialism & The Third World Woman: A Postcolonial Discourse Analysis on Violence Against South Asian Women

Abstract

Intimate partner violence impacts women around the world and therefore does not present itself congruently across cultures or regions (Devries et al., 2013; Sarkar, 2010; World Health Organization, 2012). Many contemporary researchers strive to name, classify and understand experiences of intimate partner violence that are distinct to the South Asian subcontinent and members of the South Asian diaspora (Ahmed-Ghosh, 2004; Bloch & Rao, 2002; Chatterji & Chaudhry, 2014; Jeyaseelan et al., 2007; Mani, 1987; Panchanadeswaran, & Koverola, 2005). Their works contribute to a dominant discourse about violence against South Asian women that often frames cultural understandings and practices to be the cause of harm within this community. A dominant discourse which predominantly utilizes Western feminist understandings of “patriarchy” and oppression primarily serves to further homogenize, Other, and essentialize the experiences of South Asian women which cannot and should not be discussed in contrast to violence in a Western context. The impact of applying a Western lens to violence against South Asian women is that Western scholars take on the responsibility of identifying and prioritizing the needs of South Asian peoples and offer solutions to these issues without considering the systems of support that already exist or asking those impacted how they imagine change. This project engages a postcolonial discourse analysis to examine dominant discourses on violence against South Asian women as they are deployed within the context, literature, and research on intimate partner violence. Through analyzing 75 highly cited articles using a postcolonial lens, this project unearths commonalities across the dominant discourse such as the use of positivistic colonial research methods, the construction of a monolithic South Asia, the technologies of neoliberalism and colonial capitalism, and the archetype of the Third World Woman via white feminism. These reoccurring themes throughout the dominant discourse indicate the existence of an inferiorizing and oversimplified understanding of South Asian people and their experiences which is frequently framed using colonial technologies and the white gaze. Deconstructing these mechanisms can create an intentional space for anti-colonial ways of being and knowing as a South Asian person and discussions of violence in the South Asian subcontinent and diaspora without essentializing, homogenizing, or erasing aspects of these experiences.