TY - JOUR
T1 - De/gendering violence and racialising blame in Swedish child welfare:
T2 - what has childhood got to do with it?
AU - Knezevic, Zlatana
AU - Eriksson, Maria
AU - Heikkilä, Mia
PY - 2021/5/21
Y1 - 2021/5/21
N2 - This article is a critical interrogation of how gender and power figure in Swedish child welfare policy and the discourses on violence in intimate relationships vis-à-vis children exposed to violence. Drawing on feminist violence research, critical childhood studies, and intersectional perspectives, we identify a differentiation with racialised undertones in the understanding of violence as a social problem when related to children’s exposure. While predominately gender-neutral discourses of social heredity and epidemiology run through the material for the seemingly ‘universal’ child, forms of violence ascribed to the presumed cultural Others link to gender, structural power and sexuality. The article concludes that gendered articulations of violence are restricted yet pivotal if children’s exposure is to be linked to issues of inequality and power. However, when gendering interlinks with racialisation, problematic differentiations of violence, childhoods and children are produced.
AB - This article is a critical interrogation of how gender and power figure in Swedish child welfare policy and the discourses on violence in intimate relationships vis-à-vis children exposed to violence. Drawing on feminist violence research, critical childhood studies, and intersectional perspectives, we identify a differentiation with racialised undertones in the understanding of violence as a social problem when related to children’s exposure. While predominately gender-neutral discourses of social heredity and epidemiology run through the material for the seemingly ‘universal’ child, forms of violence ascribed to the presumed cultural Others link to gender, structural power and sexuality. The article concludes that gendered articulations of violence are restricted yet pivotal if children’s exposure is to be linked to issues of inequality and power. However, when gendering interlinks with racialisation, problematic differentiations of violence, childhoods and children are produced.
U2 - 10.1332/239868021X16177419125458
DO - 10.1332/239868021X16177419125458
M3 - Article
SN - 2398-6808
VL - 5
SP - 199
EP - 214
JO - Journal of Gender-Based Violence
JF - Journal of Gender-Based Violence
IS - 2
ER -