Vanishing Complainants: The Place of Violence in Family, Gender, Work, and Law

Why is it that wherever and whenever scholars have looked in the English speaking Caribbean, domestic violence complainants vanish from the courts? In pursuit of the answer to this question, I marshal two types of evidence. First, I review interdisciplinary research by scholars who have written about family, gender, and work in this region. I find that there is a place for violence in each of these categories. Next, I turn to a case history involving domestic violence from Trinidad. I examine the complex interactions between a victim and family members, neighbors, and legal officials, identifying their mutual participation in a culture of reconciliation. Cultures of reconciliation illuminate ideas about family, gender, work, and law that keep victims from pursuing legal remedies and buttress instead accommodation to everyday violence. I suggest that the concept of cultures of reconciliation is useful both: 1) as an analytical framework to capture how local ideas and practices coalesce into structural patterns that operate against the institutionalized forces of law; and 2) as a research tool for cross-cultural investigation and analysis. Identifying cultures of reconciliation can thus help us explain why domestic violence victims vanish from the courts.