Exploring Lived Experience of Family and Domestic Violence Against Women With Disability: A Scoping Review

Abstract

This article reports on a scoping review exploring understandings of family and domestic violence (FDV) against women with disability (WWD) within the literature and constitutes the second article in a two-part series, the first critiquing the categorization and measurement of FDV and disability. We report findings from qualitative studies included in the review, predominantly interpretivist and critical in orientation. The scoping review included 43 articles, 15 of which are included here, as they draw upon data directly from the perspectives of WWD. Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted, utilizing both inductive and deductive coding, and consultation between the authors. The analysis highlighted experiences of disability-based abuse, the nexus of ableism and sexism within the everyday, and meanings of justice and resilience for WWD. Disability-based abuse was perpetrated primarily by intimate partners, including financial and physical disability-based abuse, and was used to exploit and perpetuate situations of isolation. Sexist and ableist expectations, assumptions, and attitudes converged in everyday encounters within the community, with workers and systems. However, WWD reported strategies of resistance, healing, coping, and moving on in the aftermath of FDV and indicated what can be done to promote justice, both personally and within systems. The findings were discussed drawing on Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition to highlight the mechanisms by which recognition and respect can be enhanced to enable full access to citizenship, in particular, for WWD to live free from violence.