The assumptions of home as an intimate, private and secure space have long been taken for granted, not only in public opinion but also in the broader social sciences. Studies of domestic violence, however, have served to directly question the supposition of home as mainly an unalienable space and to put troubling experiences of exploitation and insecurity centre stage. Accounts of domestic violence disrupt the imagination of home as a secure space, demonstrating how home can become a site of violence and terror. For women, home may be the most insecure place within their lives, a place where they are most at risk of being subject to physical, sexual, and psychological violence. In contrast, men are mostly victims of violence in public spaces. The gendered nature of domestic violence, intersecting with the gendered nature of household spaces, provides a challenge to normative understandings of a private/public divide. Reminding the slogan of ‘Personal is political’, feminist accounts of domestic violence have revealed the widespread nature of domestic violence and have transformed an up-until-then private matter into a public social problem demanding public intervention. In this talk, I will retrace however, the depoliticization that occurred in the process of institutionalizing and professionalizing public action against domestic violence in Swiss context.

Dr. Faten Khazaei is an Associate Researcher at the Centre for the Understanding of Social Processes (MAPS) at the University of Neuchâtel.

The picture used is from a campaign created in early 2006 and has been published locally and internationally for Amensty International: Stop Violence Against Women. Art Director: George Mardas, Copywriter: Periklis Matsoukis.