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The Importance of Community in a Feminist Analysis of Domestic Violence among American Indians
Author(s) -
Hamby Sherry L.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1005145720371
Subject(s) - domestic violence , socioeconomic status , diversity (politics) , context (archaeology) , criminology , sociology , gender studies , poison control , geography , social psychology , political science , suicide prevention , psychology , demography , population , medicine , environmental health , anthropology , archaeology
There are over 500 native communities in the United States alone. Although popular conceptions in the majority culture commonly refer to these as a single American Indian group, native communities are in fact extremely diverse and heterogeneous. Issues of gender, class, and power are discussed from a feminist perspective with an emphasis on the diversity among native communities. Available evidence, while sketchy, suggests that male authority, male restrictiveness, and socioeconomic stress are associated with violence, but that the levels of these factors vary widely across native groups. For example, some native tribes practice matrilineal descent while others are patrilineal. This diversity has far‐reaching implications for the community context in which domestic violence occurs. An approach that integrates both feminist and community approaches seems best suited to address the problem of domestic violence in native North America.