3 - Storying the Victim/Survivor

Summary

Chapter Three, “Storying the Victim/Survivor: Identity, Domestic Violence and Discourses of Agency,” combines an argument about indexicality and iconization with an argument about agency. The analysis shows that police hold a particular idea about agency in regard to the law—people do things on purpose, and they have the ability to choose to do or not to do things. This view of agency, what I call sovereign agency, following Foucault, allows the police to arrest, believing that a person knowingly or purposefully broke the law. Translated in the context of victims, however, this view of agency is entirely problematic. Police believe that victims can just leave an abusive relationship at will and that leaving would bring a swift end to the violence. Victim views on and performances of agency are far more practical and contextual. They are making situated decisions about how to survive every day. I position both models of agency in a theory of discursive agency, to show how the police officers’ more institutionally powerful discourse acts on and erases portions of victim identity. Their discourse “iconicizes” () a particular victim and victim agency, thereby erasing aspects of victim/survivor identity that are performed in their narratives about domestic violence.