Towards an integrated theoretical framework for understanding women, work and violence in non-metropolitan contexts

Abstract

This paper proposes an integrated theoretical framework for understanding women, work and violence in non-metropolitan contexts. Despite the fact that the relationship between domestic and family violence (DFV) and the workplace is a growing focus of academic research, there remain certain lacunae within the literature. In particular, research that examines DFV and work in tandem is incredibly urban-centric, but also quite descriptive and a-theoretical, as well as quantitative in its methodological approaches. The lack of non-metropolitan research at the nexus of DFV and work is puzzling, given that established scholarship tells us firstly that DFV is more potent and complicated outside of big cities, and secondly that work is also harder to obtain and more complicated. In light of these issues, the current paper serves three distinct functions. Firstly, it operates as a call for the generation of new research that addresses limitations within the academic conversation. Secondly, it argues for the significance of research that illuminates the relationship between work and DFV in non-metropolitan locations; not only to address the existing knowledge gap, but also because the findings generated in these more ‘extreme’ scenarios may assist us in effectively addressing the DFV–work nexus more broadly. And thirdly, to facilitate the production of rigorous and holistic knowledge at the intersection of work, DFV and non-metropolitan experience, the paper proposes an integrated theoretical framework for understanding women, work and violence in non-metropolitan contexts. Overall, it argues that such an integrated framework would necessarily need to account for the contextual factors of space and place, as well as feminist theory on work, and existing knowledge on both violence against women and the complexities of work in non-metropolitan contexts.