Carolyn Stauffer | Eastern Mennonite University (original) (raw)
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Social Sciences
This research draws on the tradition of Latinx critical race theory (LatCrit) to explore how soci... more This research draws on the tradition of Latinx critical race theory (LatCrit) to explore how social capital is deployed by undocumented Latina GBV survivors as a form of personal and collective resistance. The study uses the social capital matrices of bonding, bridging, and linking capital as its primary narrative analysis grids. The research qualitatively analyzes a sample of undocumented survivors’ counter-stories regarding three factors: citizenship status, help-seeking behaviors, and service use patterns. Research findings illuminate the social logics of GBV disclosure locations, the use of informal support services, and how survivors strategically deploy new economic opportunity structures. The article highlights the intersectionality of GBV and undocumented status, demonstrating how survivors leverage various forms of social capital to resist both the carceral state and the violence of abusers.
Eastern Mennonite University, 2020
This article offers a provocative look at practices of false compliance that homeless gender-base... more This article offers a provocative look at practices of false compliance that homeless gender-based violence survivors employ to withstand the personal and structural violence they experience. The article explores how the three instrumentations of disorder, evasion, and subterfuge are used by survivors as forms of veiled resistance, as well as locations that exhibit their agency. Featuring stories from a series of in-depth interviews, the article uses critical theory to examine the specific mechanisms survivors' use to defy violent power relations. The research employs a grounded theory methodology, using narrative analysis grids to code for dialogic and performative themes that consistently emerge in survivor narratives. Research findings suggest that survivors' needs may be best met through innovative community-based programming that deinstitutionalizes entry and exit points into support systems. This decenters the role and function of the external professional helper by utilizing trained local community members as key partners in the disruption of violence cycles. This less traditional approach should be accompanied by housing reform policies that effect longer-term structural change by embedding shelter and safety needs in community networks. In the absence of such durable supports, survivors will continue to enact strategies of sabotage and logics of subversion until helping systems are transformed.
Sexual violence critically injures the integrity of bodies. This is the case for bodies on the in... more Sexual violence critically injures the integrity of bodies. This is the case for bodies on the individual level as well as collective bodies on the institutional and global levels. While much attention has been given to how sexual violence traumatically impacts on individual women, less attention has been devoted to its impacts on the dynamics of community life (Krug et al. 2002). This gap in the literature is part of this chapter’s impetus to explore the ‘body politics’ of female sexual abuse survivors within religious enclaves. By examining how enclaves exert control over the bodies of survivors, conclusions can be drawn regarding institutional complicity as well as recommendations made for more effective structural responses.
Contemporary South Africa is poised at the intersection of a polarizing and contentious paradox. ... more Contemporary South Africa is poised at the intersection of a polarizing and contentious paradox. On the one hand, South Africa boasts one of the world's most inclusive and representative constitutions concerning women's rights and protections. On the other hand, the nation currently weighs in with some of the globe's highest levels of sexual and gender-based violence. This article investigates the origins of this paradox, exploring the nexus between South Africa's history of structural violence during Apartheid and current mores of behavior in intimate domains. The article probes the ways gender identities have been scripted and problematizes the complicity of state, legal and religious institutions with silence around gender-based violence. It concludes with reflections on individual and collective agency and highlights the vital role that faith communities have in social transformation.
Horizontal philanthropies reside at the intersection of South Africa's past, present and future. ... more Horizontal philanthropies reside at the intersection of South Africa's past, present and future. These philanthropies divulge information about kinship structures, expose complex class allegiances and disclose information about key resource transfers that often go unscrutinised in the public discourse. This chapter examines research on the giving practices of a purposive sample of black 1 professionals in Gauteng province, South Africa. Findings from the research challenge two central assumptions regarding philanthropy: that it is a predominately unidirectional activity and that it manifests primarily in vertical formats. The research found that giving practices pivoted on cycles of exchange embedded in deeply cultural and historically situated dynamics. More specifically, the research explored four paradoxical findings among respondents in the Gauteng context. First, while horizontal philanthropy specifically exhibited as a bridge across composite family and community systems, it also heightened dissonance around customary versus contemporary identity allegiances. Second, respondents suggested that giving was regularly used as an instrument to placate growing class divides as benefactors were increasingly feeling the pull of their own upward social mobility. Third, respondents exhibited a bias towards non-institutional giving, choosing instead relationally accountable one-on-one and in-kind transfers as their favoured methods of philanthropy. Fourth, while horizontal philanthropies were frequently conceived of as exchanges across generations, in the Gauteng context they patterned themselves in terms of the younger generation supporting their community forebears. A common theme weaving together all of the above findings was that horizontal philanthropy was born out of a symbiotic and frequently uncomfortable interdependence between givers and receivers. Protocols of giving were thus simultaneously used as instruments of reciprocity and resistance; this was the case both for benefactors and recipients, but each for different reasons.
Social Sciences
This research draws on the tradition of Latinx critical race theory (LatCrit) to explore how soci... more This research draws on the tradition of Latinx critical race theory (LatCrit) to explore how social capital is deployed by undocumented Latina GBV survivors as a form of personal and collective resistance. The study uses the social capital matrices of bonding, bridging, and linking capital as its primary narrative analysis grids. The research qualitatively analyzes a sample of undocumented survivors’ counter-stories regarding three factors: citizenship status, help-seeking behaviors, and service use patterns. Research findings illuminate the social logics of GBV disclosure locations, the use of informal support services, and how survivors strategically deploy new economic opportunity structures. The article highlights the intersectionality of GBV and undocumented status, demonstrating how survivors leverage various forms of social capital to resist both the carceral state and the violence of abusers.
Eastern Mennonite University, 2020
This article offers a provocative look at practices of false compliance that homeless gender-base... more This article offers a provocative look at practices of false compliance that homeless gender-based violence survivors employ to withstand the personal and structural violence they experience. The article explores how the three instrumentations of disorder, evasion, and subterfuge are used by survivors as forms of veiled resistance, as well as locations that exhibit their agency. Featuring stories from a series of in-depth interviews, the article uses critical theory to examine the specific mechanisms survivors' use to defy violent power relations. The research employs a grounded theory methodology, using narrative analysis grids to code for dialogic and performative themes that consistently emerge in survivor narratives. Research findings suggest that survivors' needs may be best met through innovative community-based programming that deinstitutionalizes entry and exit points into support systems. This decenters the role and function of the external professional helper by utilizing trained local community members as key partners in the disruption of violence cycles. This less traditional approach should be accompanied by housing reform policies that effect longer-term structural change by embedding shelter and safety needs in community networks. In the absence of such durable supports, survivors will continue to enact strategies of sabotage and logics of subversion until helping systems are transformed.
Sexual violence critically injures the integrity of bodies. This is the case for bodies on the in... more Sexual violence critically injures the integrity of bodies. This is the case for bodies on the individual level as well as collective bodies on the institutional and global levels. While much attention has been given to how sexual violence traumatically impacts on individual women, less attention has been devoted to its impacts on the dynamics of community life (Krug et al. 2002). This gap in the literature is part of this chapter’s impetus to explore the ‘body politics’ of female sexual abuse survivors within religious enclaves. By examining how enclaves exert control over the bodies of survivors, conclusions can be drawn regarding institutional complicity as well as recommendations made for more effective structural responses.
Contemporary South Africa is poised at the intersection of a polarizing and contentious paradox. ... more Contemporary South Africa is poised at the intersection of a polarizing and contentious paradox. On the one hand, South Africa boasts one of the world's most inclusive and representative constitutions concerning women's rights and protections. On the other hand, the nation currently weighs in with some of the globe's highest levels of sexual and gender-based violence. This article investigates the origins of this paradox, exploring the nexus between South Africa's history of structural violence during Apartheid and current mores of behavior in intimate domains. The article probes the ways gender identities have been scripted and problematizes the complicity of state, legal and religious institutions with silence around gender-based violence. It concludes with reflections on individual and collective agency and highlights the vital role that faith communities have in social transformation.
Horizontal philanthropies reside at the intersection of South Africa's past, present and future. ... more Horizontal philanthropies reside at the intersection of South Africa's past, present and future. These philanthropies divulge information about kinship structures, expose complex class allegiances and disclose information about key resource transfers that often go unscrutinised in the public discourse. This chapter examines research on the giving practices of a purposive sample of black 1 professionals in Gauteng province, South Africa. Findings from the research challenge two central assumptions regarding philanthropy: that it is a predominately unidirectional activity and that it manifests primarily in vertical formats. The research found that giving practices pivoted on cycles of exchange embedded in deeply cultural and historically situated dynamics. More specifically, the research explored four paradoxical findings among respondents in the Gauteng context. First, while horizontal philanthropy specifically exhibited as a bridge across composite family and community systems, it also heightened dissonance around customary versus contemporary identity allegiances. Second, respondents suggested that giving was regularly used as an instrument to placate growing class divides as benefactors were increasingly feeling the pull of their own upward social mobility. Third, respondents exhibited a bias towards non-institutional giving, choosing instead relationally accountable one-on-one and in-kind transfers as their favoured methods of philanthropy. Fourth, while horizontal philanthropies were frequently conceived of as exchanges across generations, in the Gauteng context they patterned themselves in terms of the younger generation supporting their community forebears. A common theme weaving together all of the above findings was that horizontal philanthropy was born out of a symbiotic and frequently uncomfortable interdependence between givers and receivers. Protocols of giving were thus simultaneously used as instruments of reciprocity and resistance; this was the case both for benefactors and recipients, but each for different reasons.