The tie that binds: race, gender and US violence

This article uses African-American women's experiences with violence as a particular lens to explore the relationships among (1) social constructions of violence; (2) how violence operates to link power relations of race and gender; and (3) potential contributions of transversal politics in ant...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethnic and racial studies 1998-09, Vol.21 (5), p.917-938
Main Author: Collins, Patricia Hill
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African-AMERICAN Women'S Experiences Of Violence
African-Americans
Black people
Correlation
Cultures and civilizations
Definitions
Definitions Of Violence
Gender
General studies
Politics
Power
Power relationships
Race
Race And Gender
Race Relations
Sexes
Social construction
Social Constructions Of Violence
Sociology
Transversal Politics
U.S.A
United States
USA
Violence
Women
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article uses African-American women's experiences with violence as a particular lens to explore the relationships among (1) social constructions of violence; (2) how violence operates to link power relations of race and gender; and (3) potential contributions of transversal politics in anti-violence work. Since definitions of violence have little meaning in the abstract, the article first analyses how hierarchical power relations in the United States influence what counts as violence. Definitions of violence depend not only on the specifics of any given situation, but generally on who has the power to define both group identity and social context. The article then examines how intersectional approaches to African-American women's experiences with violence provide new insights for reconceptualizing the significance of group histories for constructing American violence. Finally, the article explores the potential implications of definitional shifts of violence for a transversal politics that might resist violence.
ISSN:0141-9870
1466-4356
DOI:10.1080/014198798329720