Vulnerability and resistance : black immigrant women’s experiences of spousal abuse in Johannesburg

Abstract: How black African immigrant women living in South Africa experience, endure and react to domestic violence is a topic that needs considerable exploration and in-depth analysis. This mini-dissertation focused on eight non-South African immigrant women who had endured violence at the hands of their partners while living in Johannesburg. Feminist theories of patriarchy and intersectionality were applied to gain insight and understanding into their views on the factors that make them vulnerable to abuse in the current context. The study also attempted to investigate how immigrant women conceptualised domestic violence and what they saw as their abilities to cope and/or assert their agency. Findings from this study indicate that black African immigrant women draw on similar coping mechanisms to immigrant women in other societies. However, the instances in which some of the women exercised their agency in attempting to ameliorate their suffering by standing up to their abusers, debunk the myth that abused women, if non-citizens and immigrants, are helpless, unsupported and unable to change their situations. The participants in this study refused to be intimidated by institutional or structural barriers that have been identified as keeping women in abusive relationships, as seen in previous studies that emanate from outside Africa.M.A. (Sociology