Storying Domestic Violence: Constructions and Stereotypes of Abuse in the Discourse of General Practitioners (Frontiers of Narrative)

260 Pages·2007·1.45 MB·English

by  Jarmila Mildorf

Storying Domestic Violence
Frontiers of Narrrative
(cid:72)(cid:58)(cid:71)(cid:62)(cid:58)(cid:72)(cid:0)(cid:58)(cid:57)(cid:62)(cid:73)(cid:68)(cid:71)
David Herman
Ohio State University
Storying Domestic Violence
Constructions and Stereotypes of Abuse
in the Discourse of General Practitioners
Jarmila Mildorf
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS • LINCOLN AND LONDON
Source acknowledgments
for
previously published material
appear on p. xiv. ¶
©(cid:17)(cid:15)(cid:15)(cid:22) by the
Board of Regents
of the
University of Nebraska
All rights reserved
Manufactured
in the
United States of America
¶ Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
¶ Mildorf, Jarmila.
¶ Storying domestic violence :
constructions and stereotypes of abuse
in the discourse of general practitioners
/ Jarmila Mildorf.
¶ p. ; cm. —
(Frontiers of narrative)
¶ Includes
bibliographical references
and index.
¶ (cid:62)(cid:72)(cid:55)(cid:67)-(cid:16)(cid:18):(cid:24)(cid:22)(cid:23)-(cid:15)-(cid:23)(cid:15)(cid:18)(cid:17)-(cid:18)(cid:17)(cid:20)(cid:24)-(cid:19)
(cloth : alk. paper)
¶ (cid:62)(cid:72)(cid:55)(cid:67)-(cid:16)(cid:15):(cid:15)-(cid:23)(cid:15)(cid:18)(cid:17)-(cid:18)(cid:17)(cid:20)(cid:24)-(cid:19)
(cloth : alk. paper)
¶ (cid:16). Family violence.
(cid:17). Discourse analysis, Narrative.
(cid:18). Narrative medicine.
(cid:19). Physician and patient.
(cid:20). Physicians (General practice)
I. Title. II. Series.
[(cid:57)(cid:67)(cid:65)(cid:66):(cid:16). Physician-Patient Relations.
(cid:17). Domestic Violence.
(cid:18). Narration.
(cid:19). Truth Disclosure.
(cid:76)(cid:21)(cid:17)(cid:66)(cid:21)(cid:19)(cid:16)s(cid:17)(cid:15)(cid:15)(cid:22)]
(cid:71)(cid:54)(cid:16)(cid:16)(cid:17)(cid:17).(cid:66)(cid:20)(cid:20) (cid:17)(cid:15)(cid:15)(cid:22)
(cid:18)(cid:21)(cid:17).(cid:23)(cid:17)'(cid:24)(cid:17)dc—(cid:17)(cid:17)
¶ (cid:17)(cid:15)(cid:15)(cid:21)(cid:15)(cid:17)(cid:18)(cid:23)(cid:19)(cid:24)
¶ Set in Quadraat
& Quadraat Sans by
Kim Essman.
Designed by R. W. Boeche.
For my parents and the best sisters in the world, Jana and Julia

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Transcription Conventions xv
(cid:16). Introduction (cid:16)
(cid:17). Narrative
Theoretical Background (cid:16)(cid:15)
(cid:18). Domestic Violence and the Role of General Practice
A Narrative-Analytic Approach (cid:17)(cid:23)
(cid:19). Signs of Abuse
“Classic” Disclosures and Narrative Trajectories (cid:19)(cid:24)
(cid:20). Setting the Scene of Abuse
Metaphors and Spatiotemporal Mapping (cid:21)(cid:23)
(cid:21). Mythologizing Time, Mythologizing Violence
Backgrounds and Explanations of Domestic Abuse (cid:24)(cid:19)
(cid:22). Agents of Their Own Victimization
The Women’s Role in the (cid:60)(cid:69)s’ Narratives (cid:16)(cid:17)(cid:18)
(cid:23). Evaluating Abuse
Storied Knowledge and Salient Facts (cid:16)(cid:19)(cid:19)
(cid:24). Conclusion (cid:16)(cid:22)(cid:18)
Appendix (cid:16)(cid:23)(cid:22)
Notes (cid:17)(cid:16)(cid:18)
Bibliography (cid:17)(cid:16)(cid:24)
Index (cid:17)(cid:18)(cid:18)

Preface
Between one quarter and half of all women in the world experience domestic
violence at some point in their lives, according to World Bank figures (Bunch
1997:42). Local surveys and studies throughout the world confirm this find-
ing. Since domestic violence causes both acute physical injuries and long-term
chronic illness, abused women are likely to appeal to their family doctors or
general practitioners as one of their first resources for help. However, general
practitioners rarely report domestic violence in their practices. Why do doc-
tors not notice domestic violence, and why do women not disclose it to them?
What makes communication about domestic violence between doctor and pa-
tient so difficult? This study’s unique contribution to the problem of preva-
lence and oversight is its examination of doctors’ narrative practices around
treatment rather than the women’s stories of abuse, which have received more
attention in previous research. In addition, the study proposes solutions from
within the same narrative paradigm.
A few studies over the last years have focused on general practitioners’ atti-
tudes toward and perceptions of domestic violence and have also, albeit mostly
cursorily, taken into account stigmatizing discourses and stereotypical imag-
ery. By considering general practitioners’ narrative discourses about domestic
violence against the background of theories of narrative and knowledge and by
applying narrative-analytic tools, this study opens up new vistas for the appli-
cation of narrative research in this field. The book has emerged from two of my
main areas of interest: the relationship between language and social problems,
on the one hand, and the study of narrative, on the other. As a result, this work
seeks to answer two interrelated questions: first, to what extent and in what ways
are notions of “language,” “discourse,” and “narrative” relevant for the func-
tioning of social life and of people’s everyday social practices in general as well
as for the emergence and recurrence of social problems in particular? Second,
can linguistic analysis and the study of narrative forms in discourse contrib-