How the Dialogue in Communicative Daily Life Stories Transforms Women’s Analyses of Why They Suffered Gender Violence

Abstract

Research has shown that some battered women have incorporated a discourse that victimizes them again as a consequence of the wrong intervention of external agents (friends, social services, legal systems). They, however, can be active subjects of their personal transformation. This study presents how women are empowered through participation in communicative daily life stories (CDLS), where their life experiences are contrasted with the main scientific contributions from violence against women research. It also discusses the way in which the victimizing discourse is made visible and re-elaborated in the dialogue between the researcher and the women being researched. CDLS do not impose a theoretical discourse that women have to accept, but rather provide the space of dialogue with them to discuss the scientific evidences about gender violence.