Creeping towards justice : domestic violence and the sovereign state in asylum law

Document
Document
    Item Description
    Linked Agent
    Date
    May 11, 2016
    Graduation Year
    2016
    Abstract

    In 2014 the United States Board of Immigration Appeals published the decision Matter of A-R-C-G-, which sets precedent recognizing domestic violence as potential grounds for asylum. Lawyers and immigrant advocates celebrated this recognition of gendered violence in U.S. asylum law but criticized its narrow scope. The thesis argues that the logic used in the Matter of A-R-C-G- decision would better support an expansive recognition of gender-based violence through a gender-plus-nationality particular social group rather than the articulated group "married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship." Furthermore, the asylum apparatus struggles to understand non-state persecutors, mischaracterizing domestic violence as a private issue. Even when recognizing domestic violence as a political problem the analysis focuses on the state as persecutor by emphasizing the action/inaction of the police. This gaze on the state emphasizes nation-states as the center of analysis in asylum, reinforcing sovereign immigration control and limiting the nature of what persecutions are visible to asylum. However, the expansion of asylum to include domestic violence demonstrates the possibility of incorporating currently unrecognized forms of persecution in asylum and re-envisioning to whom the state is responsible.

    Geographic Subject
    Genre
    Extent
    41 pages
    Contact Us

    If you have questions about permitted uses of this content, please contact the Arminda administrator: http://works.whitman.edu/contact-arminda