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Centring migrant community voices in forced marriage prevention social policy: A proposed reframing
Author(s) -
Zeweri Helena,
Shinkfield Sara
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/ajs4.153
Subject(s) - cognitive reframing , gender studies , sociology , immigration , government (linguistics) , ethnography , power (physics) , criminology , political science , social psychology , law , psychology , linguistics , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , anthropology
In this article, we examine how young adult Muslim Australian women from immigrant families are navigating familial pressures around marriage, and what this can teach the forced marriage prevention sector about the importance of privileging community voices in its educational approach. Through an ethnographic approach that focuses on two women's recent experiences with social and cultural expectations around marriage, we argue that their strategies serve the prevention sector in the following ways: (1) they put into question the perpetrator–victim binary and official government warning signs, which suggest that coercive practices around marriage inherently render the family as a site of violence, and young adults as lacking the power to navigate these familial relationships; and (2) they reveal that young adult immigrant women see pressures around marriage through the prisms of collective care, sociality and the potential transformation and strengthening of familial bonds despite past experiences of social pressure.