Paper short abstract:

In a context of chronic generalised violence, the paper argues that it is crucial to understand women's multiple strategies of survival beyond (and including) the law as everyday forms of resistance rather than passive acceptance or merely survival.

Paper long abstract:

Despite progressive legislation across Latin America to address multiple forms of violence against women, research shows that many women are reluctant to address intimate partner violence through formal legal challenges preferring to 'deal with the problem' rather than seek formal redress through legal processes that can be costly, time consuming and often result in impunity. Further, when women do make formal complaints, their legal claims are repeatedly ignored or not taken seriously. This reluctance to prosecute is often perceived as passivity on women's part rather than a response to systemic patriarchy. Building on feminist theorising on violence and based on detailed empirical research in El Salvador and Brazil, the paper offers an exploratory discussion of women's coping strategies and, in particular, the ways in which they resist and challenge their gendered subordination. In a context of chronic generalised violence, the paper argues that it is crucial to understand women's multiple strategies of survival beyond (and including) the law as everyday forms of resistance rather than passive acceptance or merely survival. In this way, a much more nuanced understanding of women's agency is emphasised as a critique of both the shortcomings of the legal process and the state itself. We aim to set out a tentative research agenda that seeks to understand the gendered political connections between multiple forms of insecurity.