Relational Geographies of Child Abuse

A useful starting point for developing more nuanced insights into the spatialities of domestic violence as it affects children are understandings of space as relational and as constituted at the intersection between differently scaled power relations, which are in turn negotiated and refracted through practices of making (and transgressing) home (Blunt and Dowling 2006; Tyner 2012).

A critical geographic approach to home as a space of violence would thus go somewhat beyond the neatly ordered ecological model of different social systems to considering the home as a potentially porous site that is open to the world unless boundaries are drawn, through relations of power, that regulate the homes’ openness to that world. Such boundaries are not pre-given and they are rarely permanent but the result of temporary accommodations.

In researching the spatialities of children’s exposure to violence and abuse in the home, it is further important to consider not just momentary orderings and experi­ences of space but also longer term consequences. As recent work by Willis et al. (2016) and by social psychologists and counseling researchers (cf. Foster and Hagedorn 2014; Swanston et al. 2014) has begun to demonstrate, the personal geographies of survivors and the life journeys they take also warrant attention. In addition to this, while some researchers have (with considerable prior training) been able to engage children in discussions about their experiences of abuse, there are significant ethical problems that have led many to try and access these experiences through the memories of survivors. While this is methodologically problematic because of the fragility of memory and changed perspectives/rationalizations that survivors may have developed, their retrospective reflections and sense-making practices can, at the same time, be highly illuminating as well as, perhaps, becoming part of the process of healing and of caring for others by sharing stories and placing them in context.

It is important to note at this point that, for researchers themselves, the issue can also be very difficult to investigate, as the accounts of children and survivors are often deeply unsettling and may bring up difficult personal memories for inter­viewers and researchers. Ethical responsibilities are heightened as researchers need to ensure that interviewees do not suffer harm through retraumatization, while the relations between legal guardians and children may be difficult to manage.

Despite these problems and the general shortage of in-depth geographical research on this topic, there are some valuable and illuminating studies in geography and other disciplines that begin to map the relational and emotional spatialities of children’s exposure to violence in the home. Wilson’s (2015) and Wilson et al.’s (2012) research on children’s emotional geographies in families with substance abusing parents draws attention to the “everyday sensory, embodied and affective dimensions of children’s and young people’s spatial experience and place making” (Wilson 2015: 52) through an analysis of children’s accounts of the sensory geographies of their homes and of the spatial practices they adopt to get by in adverse circumstances. The authors note that parental substance misuse affects a large number of young people in the UK (ca. two million). They then identify parents’ management of home space around their substance misuse and children’s responses as relational practices of shaping the social spaces of home and their relationships within and beyond it. The children’s responses included retreating to their personal bedrooms and/or closing themselves off by listening to music or watching television, and needing to or using options to leave the house, either spending more time in public space or finding refuge at a friend’s place. Wilson (2015: 54) thus explains that children “sometimes feel uncomfortable and unsafe in one part of the house and take refuge elsewhere, often in a bedroom. Older children may seek refuge away from home.” She notes that respondents’ homes were often presented as places of tension and unpredictability, with children experiencing “an uncomfortable lack of control or autonomy in the home” (ibid: 57). Their feelings of exclusion and marginalization were compounded by sensory experiences, especially through noise.

Wilson emphasizes the agency of children in creating sensory environments that felt closer to their ideas of a safe space and through transgressing the boundaries of home, but she carefully avoids romanticization, as she also highlights the costs of getting by in such challenging circumstances, such as participants’ senses of isola­tion, difficult comparisons between their own and their friends’ homes, and the self­destructive behaviors of a minority:

I wouldn’t want to be in the house with her (mother) you know, (I’d) just sit in my bedroom or watch TV or listen to music. And greet (cry) all the time and I was so sad... I was on anti­depressants at 15 year old. (Jenny, 17, mother alcohol user, Wilson 2015: 61).

These insights match Swanston et al.’s (2014) observations about children’s negotiations of domestic violence. The authors focus specifically on children’s (and their mothers’) descriptions of the environment of domestic abuse, noting that children as young as eight were “able to articulate their experiences of domestic violence” (ibid: 184). They use the British Medical Association’s (2007) definition of domestic violence as “a pattern of coercive behaviors (e.g. physical, verbal, sexual, emotional, psychological and/or financial) carried out by a former or current intimate partner, intended to gain or sustain control in the relationship” (ibid), which emphasizes once again that violence is not simply an act of irrationality but often pursued with the distinct aim of exerting control and ordering social space in particular, oppressive ways. Swanston et al.

The child’s environment was described as one of pervasive fear concerning possible threat to either themselves or their mother and siblings... A number of the children appeared to be constantly thinking about what might happen to them or others in their family and what the perpetrator might do next, trying to work out his hidden intentions. It seemed the children were attempting to predict what might happen next in this fearful, threatening environment to gain some sense of control. (ibid: 189)

One participant, Claire, thus described how she,

... had to act like weary and stuff... Cos you didn’t know when he [perpetrator] was going to be drunk... It would depend how drunk he was really, because when he was really drunk he was horrible because he started getting abusive and angry... I was always thinking about what had happened, what was going to happen next. (ibid: 189)

Like several other children who participated in the study, she also described her home as one of neglect and emotional abuse, which included not being fed enough, being put down, and being told that she was not loved by anyone. Emotional geographies of abuse thus map across a much wider relational and affective terrain then an exclusive focus on acts of physical violence would reveal. A similar conclusion is drawn by Hall (1996) in her analysis of the accounts of adult lesbian survivors of child sexual abuse in the USA. In addition to the sexual abuse and sexual chaos experienced by her interviewees, Hall found that the homes they had grown up in were characterized by,

battering, unchallenged verbal abuse, scapegoating, absence of nurturance, instability of place, economic instability, developmentally inappropriate task expectations, emotional role reversal, unpredictable and unexplained events, disproportionate responses, extremes in attending, neglect of basic needs, unmonitored home boundaries, cultural void, repudiation of sensory experience, secrecy, atmosphere of mortal threat, and substance misuse (ibid: 31)

Hall also notes that several of her participants were abused by mothers, older siblings, friends of siblings, or other relatives too, while family and community members witnessing abuse rarely took action against it.

Despite this, leaving the domestic violence context and receiving counseling support were described by Swanston et al. ’s (2014) respondents as key to developing a greater sense of safety. Participants such as Kate also had numerous suggestions for ways in which children experiencing domestic violence could be helped:

Getting installed with a panic button and being able to contact other children that have been through this and getting like help off of them... Like kids being able to press charges and seeing that they can talk to the police and social services. Maybe being more assemblies on domestic abuse because there are many children not knowing what’s going on. (Kate). (ibid: 191)

While Swanston et al.’s (2014) research focused particularly on children’s expe­riences of the environment of domestic abuse at home, they begin to engage with the transitions that children (and, in this case, their mothers) have to navigate as a consequence of disclosure. Others, such as Frederick and Goddard (2007) emphasize a wider range of transitions and intersections between different spaces in the everyday lives of children who have witnessed domestic violence and/or have themselves been abused. They thus note the problematic transitions between home and school, including further marginalizations at or exclusions from school as well as truanting, which may be a consequence of such experiences of marginalization and/or a direct consequence of abuse. Frederick and Goddard (2007) further note the isolation and sense of estrangement from friends and family that children in violent domestic contexts frequently experience, as well as the fragmentation of their life worlds, e.g., as a result of family breakdown, leaving home early, being placed in care, loss of contact with parents, and/or the loss of trusted individuals.

Hall (1996) raises similar concerns in her reflections on school and community as environments that can both reinforce the abuse dynamics of home and “decrease negative outcomes” (ibid: 30). Considering participants’ transitions between home, school, and community, Hall draws attention to the impacts of parents’ high mobility leading to frequent changes of schools and loss of friends or community contacts. In addition to the problem of parents keeping children home from school, she also notes the emotional connections between the two spaces as children worried about their parents and/or siblings when they were at school. They were frequently expelled and few mentioned that they had close friends, leading Hall to conclude, that “[p]atterns of not being seen and attended to were perceptually extended into the school environment” (ibid: 42).

Neighborhood streets were also described as unsafe by many of her participants, of whom 65% had been “sexually assaulted as children by extrafamilial males in the environment near their homes” (ibid: 43). The girls were potentially more at risk from community violence as they sought opportunities to spend time away from home. While the scale of risk from strangers in public places has been questioned by many scholars (cf. Valentine 2001), it bears noting that young people growing up in areas of greater community violence are exposed to heightened risks if they seek refuge outside the home. As Meth (2003) and others have pointed out, a key aspect of the porous social geographies of domestic violence is its close connection to homelessness, as abused children and/or those witnessing domestic abuse may opt for the street as a strategy for coping with/escaping from violence at home, or be expelled by family members.

Within their communities, Hall’s participants further asked whether community members could have done more to notice their distress and to act upon it. This observation has also made by Willis et al. (2015: 1) in their research with women who suffered sexual abuse as children. Drawing on Herman (2001) they note that “it is not just individuals but entire societies that can deny, disassociate, look the other way in relation to childhood sexual abuse.” This societal disassociation, in combi­nation with the transgression and denied control of the boundaries of their bodies as children, is shown by the authors to be impacting the personal geographies of the women long term, into adulthood. The case studies presented map three different spatial responses, including management of the visibility of one’s body, coping with feelings of contamination through controlling boundaries of the self and of the domestic environment, and achieving a sense of belonging through more permanent settlement within a family and neighborhood after frequent episodes of upheaval and mobility. Parenthood is shown to be a significant turning point as the women negotiate between their own fears and spatial coping practices and the desire not to let this impact negatively on their children.

Similar observations about the importance of parenthood as a potential turning point that may prompt survivors to seek support on their complicated onward journeys through life have been made by social psychologists and counseling researchers (cf. Foster and Hagedorn 2014). This research also consistently points to the need for and helpfulness of social support. It shows that on their journeys, survivors may face new stresses that can significantly set them back in the process of recovery, emphasizing that there is no straightforward set of coping practices and/or resilience characteristics. Additional risks may not just result from personal circum­stances (which may in themselves be related to childhood trauma) but also emanate from structural inequalities, such as economic insecurity and community violence (Bourgois 2001; Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 2004). To understand the full com­plexity of the spatialities and temporalities of child abuse, it is thus also necessary to consider the wider continuum of violence and how its intersections are experienced and negotiated by children and adult survivors in the contexts of their everyday lives.

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