Narrating Gender Violence from Research to Action: The Integrative Role of the Biographical Approach in Anti-Violence Centre Strategies

Abstract

This paper explores the utility, from the viewpoint of anti-violence centre workers, of integrating biographical research with the services already offered. Because of the intent of the biographical approach to capture forms of self-representation in context, the integration proposal is configured as a tool hypothetically useful in the personalization of interventions, but also as a reflective resource for women victims of violence, responding to the need for the recall, ordering and re-signification of events experienced/narrated. To test the action-research hypothesis, a focus group of professionals at the Maree Anti-Violence Centre was organized to favor the frameworks, conceptual schemes and practices of those who work daily in direct contact with women victims of violence. The research findings, in addition to the utility and sustainability of the proposal, suggest a combination of the biographical approach with observation techniques to illuminate relational and fictional strategies along with shadowy areas of the narrations.

Keywords: anti-violence centres, gender violence, biographical approach, action-research, observation