Bordering,belonging,beyond surviving: Critical readings of intersectionality in the nexus of gender-based violence and migration in Ireland

Abstract

In this article, we examine the experiences of migrant women attempting to settle into Ireland as a host society, while navigating various forms of gender-based violence (GBV). It is based on the Irish study of an international research project to analyse, from an intersectional perspective, the causes of and effective policy responses to GBV against women migrants and refugees. Specifically, this project aimed to understand what factors increase migrant women's exposure to GBV and what resources are available to them in Ireland to access the supports they need to survive and recover on their own terms. Our analysis is informed by critical readings and deployments of intersectionality, notably the concepts of ‘situated intersectionality' (Yuval-Davis) and ‘decolonial feminism' (Lugones). We affirm the value of intersectionality as a critical analytical approach to reveal and challenge inequalities at the intersections of identity categories. We also recognise that contrary to the hoped for transformative impact of the concept of intersectionality, in its mainstream applications, it tends to reconstitute the ‘otherness' of ‘women of colour' in particular (Puar), who are rendered into ‘fragmented beings' without agency (Lugones) or a sense of belonging to any category. Taking account of these and other critiques, we adapt a situated intersectionality approach, along lines elaborated by Nira Yuval-Davis as ‘the development of feminist standpoint theory', which centres migrant women’s perspectives and experiences.

Introduction

In this article, we examine the experiences of migrant women attempting to settle into Ireland as a host society, while navigating various forms of gender-based violence (GBV) in the widest meaning of the term. It is based on the Irish study of an international research project to analyse, from an intersectional perspective, the causes of and effective policy responses to GBV against women migrants and refugees (Gender Net Plus GBV-MIG, 2019–2023) (see Freedman et al., 2022). Specifically, this project aimed to understand what factors increase migrant women's exposure to GBV and what resources are available to them to access the supports they need to survive and recover on their own terms.

Our analysis is informed by critical readings and deployments of intersectionality, notably the concepts of ‘situated intersectionality’ (Yuval-Davis, 2015) and ‘decolonial feminism’ (Lugones, 2010, 2014/2005). We affirm the value of intersectionality as a critical analytical approach to reveal and challenge inequalities at the intersections of identity categories, including in the lives of migrant women. We also recognise that contrary to the hoped for transformative impact of the concept of intersectionality, in its mainstream applications, it tends to reconstitute the ‘otherness’ of ‘women of colour’ in particular (Puar, 2012: 53), who are rendered into ‘fragmented beings’ without agency (Lugones, 2014/2005: 76) or a sense of belonging to any category. Taking account of these and other critiques, we adapt a situated intersectionality approach, along lines elaborated by Nira Yuval-Davis (2015: 94) as ‘the development of feminist standpoint theory’, which centres migrant women's perspectives and experiences.

In the first part, we present our theoretical influences, evaluating key areas of contention in relation to the concept and practice of intersectionality. Ultimately, we advocate for situated intersectionality as an analytical approach that is compatible with emancipatory aims, including classic commitments to group-based, empowerment-oriented action by subordinated people (Crenshaw, 1991: 1291) and with Lugones’ imperative to foster conditions where counter-categorical, ‘resistant knowledges’ and associated resistant ‘coalitional identities’ can emerge (Lugones, 2014/2005: 80). We also consider Puar's invitation to ‘put intersectionality in tandem with assemblage to see how they might be thought together’ (Puar, 2012: 51).

In the second part, we provide a brief review of emerging relevant research in the nexus of migration and GBV, a description of our research methodology, and an outline of the Irish context. In the third part, we present a discussion of our findings regarding migrant women's experiences navigating GBV in Ireland, deploying a situated intersectionality lens. In doing so, we explore how these inequalities are (re)produced, especially through processes of ‘bordering’, as well as migrant women's experiences of belonging and unbelonging, which impact their efforts to navigate GBV. Centring migrant women, we privilege their points of view as active survivors and knowers of their situation, variously evincing victimhood and precariousness in tandem with resistance, resilience and agency, belying any simplistic victim-agent dichotomy (Kreft and Schulz, 2021).

Part I. Critical readings of intersectionality

Introduction

To understand the contexts, forms and risks of GBV experienced by migrant women, with Yuval-Davis, we view such violence as manifestations of simultaneously occurring social inequalities and associated hierarchical social divisions and categories of difference, which are mutually constituting and permeated by layers of power relations within a given context. In our research, migrant women's accounts revealed experiences of violence from multiple interrelated sources that cannot be separated and so require intersectional concepts both to be made visible and understandable in all of their complexity and to become challengeable in various ways. However, the literature on intersectionality is large and encompasses a variety of approaches. In this section, we outline the origins of intersectionality, set out some of the main points of contention in critical readings of the concept, and present our adaptation of situated intersectionality in the context of our study.

Intersectionality: Origins and critiques

Broadly speaking, the feminist concept of intersectionality challenges the inequalities that accompany ‘difference’. At core, it develops the understanding that ‘woman’ as a gendered identity category cannot be separated from other forms of hegemonic power relations, especially those implicated in racism and class inequalities, as well as in nativist national identity formation (Yuval-Davis, 1997) and Western-dominated globalisation (Grewal, 2005; Mohanty, 2003). While the term ‘intersectionality’ as coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) became influential in the 1990s and 2000s, Crenshaw locates the concept in a longer history of black and women of colour critiques (for a comprehensive discussion, see Carastathis, 2016). Specifically, she sets out to expose how assumptions of homogenous group identity within the US white-dominated women's movement and the male-dominated antiracism movement had rendered black women invisible in both movements (Crenshaw, 1991: 1242). At the same time, Crenshaw retained a commitment to identity-based collective action as a ‘source of social empowerment and reconstruction’ (Crenshaw, 1989: 1241).

Decades later, how intersectionality has been applied is the subject of significant criticism. For example, Jasbir Puar (2012: 52) rejects the categorical thinking underpinning current intersectionality frameworks because it ‘always [produces] an Other and that Other is always Woman of Color’. María Lugones further argues that by leaving intact an assumption of ‘race’ and ‘gender’ as distinct categories, mainstream intersectionality fragments identity and conceals how multiple oppressions are actually lived as ‘enmeshed’ (2014/2005: 76). Nira Yuval-Davis (2015) makes a complementary point, emphasising the necessity to move beyond understandings of intersectionality as primarily concerned with the oppression of women of colour because this embeds a ‘view of marginalized and racialized women as “a problem”’ (Yuval-Davis et al., 2019: 26).

To counter the effects of categorical thinking, Lugones emphasises the imperative of recognising that in lived experience multiple oppressions are ‘fused’ or ‘enmeshed’ so that ‘gender oppression and race oppression [always] impinge on people without any possibility of separation’ (Lugones, 2014/2005: 76). Resisting such intersectional oppression, therefore, means comprehending that ‘[W]e inhabit both the reality constructed categorically and the reality of fusion. But we [women of colour] resist as different race-gender fusions than white women’ (Lugones, 2014/2005: 76). To further develop this theory of resistance, Lugones ‘moves methodologically from women of color feminisms to decolonial feminism’ (Lugones, 2010: 746). The latter resists the ‘coloniality of gender’, defined as ‘the oppression of women […] through the combined processes of racialization, colonization, capitalist exploitation, and heterosexualism’ (Lugones, 2010: 747). To this end, decolonial feminism is envisioned as an analytical strategy to make visible, as a defragmented ‘fully described being’ (ibid.), ‘the resister to multiple oppressions whose multiple subjectivity […] [has been until now] reduced by hegemonic understandings […] to no agency at all’ (753).

Like Lugones, Puar views Crenshaw's articulation of intersectionality as a ‘crucial black feminist intervention challenging the hegemonic rubrics of race, class, and gender within predominantly white feminist frames’ (Puar, 2012: 51). She is most critical of how intersectionality has been mainstreamed since – in ways that reinforce essentialist identity politics. Instead, Puar advocates for the deployment of the concept of assemblages developed by Deleuze and Guattari in which the analyst's focus is not on content but on ‘relations of patterns’ (Puar, 2012: 57) and not on constants but on variations (Puar, 2012: 58). From this perspective, Puar wants to ‘deprivilege the human body as a discrete organic thing’ (Puar, 2012: 57). Instead, radically decentring the human subject, she understands categories of ‘race’, ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’ as ‘events, actions, and encounters between bodies, rather than simply entities and attributes of subjects’ (Puar, 2012: 58). Giving a practical application of assemblages, Puar revisits an imagined scenario (presented in Massumi, 2002) in which domestic violence takes place in a home while a major national sporting event is being broadcast on the family TV (Puar, 2012: 60). In assemblages terms, the live broadcast problematises the ‘patterns of relations between household bodies’, making the home an ‘event-space’ where ‘anything could happen’ (Puar, 2012: 60–61).

Puar acknowledges problems with Massumi's scenario seemingly ‘aestheticising’ violence and relying on an a priori assumption of a hierarchical male-female binary within the home. Nonetheless, she values the account as an illustration of assemblages analysis, mapping ‘the interplay between signification and significance, movement and capture, matter and meaning, affect and identity’ (Puar, 2012: 61). Such analysis, Puar argues, ‘offers a different way of thinking about the questions, what causes domestic violence and how can we prevent it?’ (ibid.). She posits that intersectionality engages with the power of ‘exclusion and inclusion’ vis-à-vis ‘political institutions’ and their ‘disciplinary administration’, while assemblages address what she views as the more salient power of ‘modulation and tweaking’, (Puar, 2012: 63). However, recognising that the sovereign and disciplinary powers of the state are ever present in the lives of migrant women, it is important to proceed on an understanding that these forms of power do not replace each other but work together (Brown, 2006: 77). While Puar advances assemblages theory in response to the shortcomings of mainstream intersectionality, she accepts that ultimately the two approaches may not be reconcilable, but suggests that they might coexist usefully in a ‘frictional’ mode (Puar, 2012: 50). Although, problematic, Puar's discussion of Massumi's domestic abuse scenario helpfully draws attention to the relevance of ‘affect’ and its intensification when making sense of such situations. It also makes the case for an analytical openness to what could happen in ways that are not predetermined by identity category assumptions (as will be discussed, this is a central feature of situated intersectionality, albeit coming from a different epistemological perspective).

Situated intersectionality

While Yuval-Davis and Puar both view the fragmentising and essentialising tendencies of identity politics associated with mainstream intersectionality to be its most problematic aspect, each offers a different response. For Puar, deep ontological shifts in thinking are required. Specifically, she views feminist theory that is ‘invested in post-representational, post-human, or post-subject conceptualizations of the body’ as key to apprehending the mistakes of intersectionality and the constricting implications of intersectional identities (Puar, 2012: 50). In contrast, noting that ‘intersectionality is not a unified body of theory but more a range of theoretical and conceptual tools’ (Yuval-Davis, 2015: 93), Yuval-Davis’ prescriptions are on the level of analytical practice. The problem is that ‘fragmented identity politics’ (such as focusing on the concerns of ‘black women’ as a corrective to prioritising ‘women’ or ‘blacks’) fosters the reification and essentialisation of social boundaries rather than analysing them and understanding how they work in practice. To counter this, Yuval-Davis advocates for intersectionality as ‘the most valid theoretical approach to study social stratification’ (Yuval-Davis, 2015: 92). Specifically, her version aims to uncover the operation of mutually constituting social divisions, the power relations they construct, and the meanings they generate in particular social locations, historical moments and configurations of social divisions, in which some groups come to matter more than others (Yuval-Davis, 2015: 94).

Yuval-Davis’ treatment of belonging and its differentiation from ‘the politics of belonging’ are especially pertinent to our analysis of migrant women's experiences in Ireland. Belonging relates to emotional attachments and feelings of being ‘at home’, which in turn foster hope for the future (Yuval-Davis, 2011: 4). There are myriad ways to belong and many possible objects and levels of attachment so that ‘belonging is always a dynamic process, not a reified fixity’ (Yuval-Davis, 2011: 4). The term ‘politics of belonging’ in contrast refers to ‘specific political projects aimed at constructing belonging to particular collectivity/ies’ (Yuval-Davis, 2011: 5). A defining feature of political projects of belonging is ‘boundary maintenance’, which takes physical and ‘especially symbolic’ forms, reflecting the exercise of hegemonic powers, within and outside the community (Yuval-Davis, 2011: 3). To guide the application of situated intersectionality analysis, Yuval-Davis identifies three facets of social analysis of inequalities that are vital to consider: people's positioning along socio-economic grids of power; their identifications, attachments and sense of belonging to groups; and the normative values that form their world view. These facets are interrelated but not reducible to each other (Yuval-Davis, 2015: 95). In contrast, the logic of identity politics is to make assumptions about all three facets on the basis of one of them. Moreover, situated intersectionality calls for particular attention to be paid to the ‘geographic, social and temporal locations’ (Yuval-Davis, 2015: 95) of the individuals and groups whose experience and perspectives we seek to understand, making it especially relevant to contexts of migration. This understanding is developed in the concept of ‘bordering’. Bordering ‘delimits the area in which […] [equality and rights are extended or not] to specific categories of people […] on the basis of their citizenship and immigration status as they intersect with racialised and gendered identities’ (Yuval-Davis et al., 2019: 98).

Yuval-Davis further elaborates situated intersectionality to encompass consideration of up to four macro domains where social inequalities are created (Yuval-Davis, 2015: 98). The first domain relates to the operation of borders of states, from the local to national and international levels. In this context, Yuval-Davis uses the concept of ‘bordering’ to describe mechanisms for determining who may and may not enter a country and, among those who do enter, who is ‘allowed to stay, work and acquire civil, political and social rights’ (Yuval-Davis et al., 2019: 5). (In Part II we draw in particular on the concept of bordering to make visible processes that produce differential prospects for different migrant women navigating and surviving GBV in Ireland.) The second domain comprises inequalities in how economic, social, cultural and political goods are ‘produced, reproduced and distributed’ to people and groups inside and outside these borders (Yuval-Davis, 2015: 98). In the context of our study, this pertains especially to unequal access to services and supports for victims of GBV. The third domain encompasses different possible ‘political projects of belonging’ – whether nationalism, racism, religion or others – which structure social positionings and produce differential access to different types of to social capital. The overarching ‘political project of belonging’ that affects all migrants in Ireland is the Irish national project, which structures social positionings in ways specific to Ireland, producing differential access to social, cultural, economic and political capital in the Irish context. The fourth domain consists of the boundaries of intergenerational, familial and informal communities and networks oriented to ‘social, biological and symbolic reproduction’ – the sites associated with conventional understandings of gender-based oppression in private life. Significantly, one's membership in different kinds of communities, whether familial, friendship, religious, vocational or other, can significantly help or hinder access to different kinds of social resources (Yuval-Davis, 2015: 99).

Situated intersectionality, as outlined above, has clear merits as an approach to describe and explain the experiences of GBV related by migrant women who participated in our research. Overall, we find it offers a capacious analytical framework that can respond to the critiques of mainstream intersectionality discussed above. It also allows for exploration of how Lugones’ theory of resistance and Puar's account of assemblages can inflect and further develop intersectionality thinking and analytical practice. Equally, situated intersectionality, respects the origins of intersectional thinking articulated by black feminist and women of colour movements. Even as situated intersectionality offers a strenuous critique of fragmentary identity politics, it is no less amenable to addressing the core concerns of the concept of intersectionality as articulated by Crenshaw (1991), that is, to explore ‘the various ways in which race and gender intersect in shaping structural, political and representational aspects of violence against women of color’ (1124).

Part II. The nexus of GBV and migration

Introduction

It is well documented that GBV ‘occurs at all stages of migration in countries of origin, transit and destination’ (Freedman et al., 2022: 6). It is often a feature of armed conflict or can occur in the form of practices such as forced marriage or female genital mutilation (FGM) (ibid.). In transit, migrant women can be subject to GBV and exploitation by traffickers/smugglers, or by border authorities of the countries they seek asylum in or transit through, as well as by spouses or others with whom they have travelled (Freedman, 2019: 4). Even if a migration journey is low-risk, reception conditions upon arrival in the host country are often inadequate, exposing women to violence and exploitation by locals or other asylum seekers while awaiting decisions (Freedman et al., 2022: 7). This article is concerned with migrant women's experiences of GBV in Ireland as a host country. As such, it contributes to a small emerging literature on this topic in migration studies.

Over the last decade, a number of studies have established that refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants living in economically advanced host countries are contending with heightened risks of GBV (Freedman, 2016; Kalt et al., 2013; Keygnaert et al., 2012; Keygnaert and Guieu, 2015; Oliveira et al., 2018). For example, critiquing the policy response to migrant women at risk of ‘family violence’ in Victoria, Australia, Maher and Segrave (2018) identify the need for ‘[s]ervice and legislative responses that […] support rather than inhibit women's efforts to secure their own safety’ (503). Keygnaert and Guieu (2015) critique the ‘tunnel vision’ produced by EU legal and policy documents, which ignores migrants’ legal status, gender orientation and living conditions as specific factors exacerbating their risk of experiencing GBV within the EU (45). Significantly, Oliveira et al. (2018) problematise professionals’ limited conceptualisation of GBV as a factor in ‘the potential perpetuation of violence’ (10), including their failure to recognise adverse socio-economic conditions and related forms of exploitation and harmful practices as forms of GBV. Finally, Phillimore et al. (2023) examine how modes of integration ‘might increase or decrease risk of further SGBV, and/or protect and support recovery from SGBV’ among migrant women survivors (719). Deploying situated intersectionality concepts of bordering and belonging, this article contributes to this emerging literature through an examination of migrant women's experiences navigating GBV in Ireland.

Methodology

The research findings discussed in this article have emerged from the Irish study of an international project to analyse the causes of and effective policy responses to violence against women migrants and refugees (Gender Net Plus GBV-MIG, 2019–2023). Our primary data collection methods, approved by the University of Galway Research Ethics Committee, were semi-structured interviews and a short questionnaire to gather participants’ background information. As we wished to understand differences in experiences linked to different legal statuses, we used a broad definition of ‘migrant’ to include those who came to live in Ireland from other countries, while ‘women’ means individuals who identified as women. Three main routes were used to recruit participants: service providers, personal contacts and social media groups. To ensure diversity among participants, we utilised Facebook groups based on ethnicity, language, religion, profession, and regional affiliations to invite potential participants from diverse background.

Ultimately, 22 migrant women agreed to participate, giving their informed consent before interviews commenced. As the interviews took place in 2021 during COVID-19 restrictions, both the recruitment process and the interviews were conducted online. While the participants were aware that the study was concerned with GBV from the perspective of migrant women, to avoid re-traumatisation or positioning women primarily as ‘victims’ of GBV, semi-structured interview questions did not directly ask participants to recount their experiences of GBV. Rather, 20 prompt questions were phrased to elicit migrant women's observations, opinions, and perceptions regarding their migration stories, experiences of living in Ireland and their interactions with different government agencies, domains of society, services and people. For example, to understand participants’ experiences of bordering vis-à-vis the state, questions asked included: Have you ever been in contact with the police and have you ever been in contact with immigration services/offices? To gain insight into the nature of the policy response to migrant women experiencing GBV in Ireland, we asked questions such as: Have you ever had contact with services relating to domestic violence or know a migrant woman who has? And did you seek any help/support [for difficulties you faced] and what kind of response did you get? To get a sense of participants’ experiences of belonging and non-belonging, questions posed included: Do you feel that people understand your situation? Have you met Irish people (men or women) and what has been your experience? What is your relationship to the local community/area where you live? and what is your relationship to wider Irish society? About 85% of participants (19) shared experiences of GBV. Interviews lasted one to two hours and were conducted to give participants control over their stories and how they wanted to share them, establishing participants as stakeholders in the research rather than subjects from whom data is extracted.

The background questionnaire helped situate participants in terms of their social positionalities. They came from different countries in Africa (9), Asia (5) and South America (6), with two from Central and Eastern Europe. We gathered data on age, marital, parental and migration status, level of education and employment before and after migration, and awareness of available GBV services in Ireland. A majority were parents who were single or separated/divorced from a male partner/spouse and in the age range of 30 to 49. At the time of arrival to Ireland, about one-third of participants were international protection applicants, one third came as dependent spouses (Stamp 3 visa), while some had come on student visas or with permission to work (Stamp 4 visa) or already holding an EU passport. The accommodation situations of participants varied; most rented privately, five lived in direct provision centres, five owned homes with a mortgage, some received social housing support, and two had experienced homelessness. To preserve the anonymity of research participants, pseudonyms are used and only their region but not country of origin is identified in the discussion that follows.

Notwithstanding the diverse backgrounds of participants – traversing differences in country/region of origin, ethnicity, religion, language, profession, legal status, residency, and experiences of GBV, including rape, sexual assault, trafficking, intimate partner violence and sexual harassment – many shared similar experiences of and perspectives on institutional and personal GBV during and after migration. We use the analytical themes of ‘bordering’ and ‘belonging’ to capture certain commonalities across these experiences, while also recognising the distinct challenges participants faced as they navigated GBV as migrant women in Ireland, relating to their socio-economic positioning (e.g., whether living in direct provision or not); identities and modes of belonging (e.g., types of opportunities for integration into Irish society or group identification); and normative value systems (e.g., the influence of religion or family). Given the limitations of space, in this article, we draw on the responses of eight migrant women who shared detailed accounts of their experiences of GBV. They reflect different migration stories and legal statuses across Ireland's main migrant population groups from beyond Europe.

The Irish context

In the late 20th century, Ireland became a country of net inward migration as it developed economically. The 2022 Irish census indicates that 20% of the 4.3 million people residing in the Republic of Ireland were born outside of the country with non-Irish citizens accounting for 12% of the population and 77% identifying as ‘White Irish’. Polish and UK citizens account for the largest non-Irish groups, with Indian, Romanian and Brazilian communities growing significantly in 2016–2022. In 1994, there were a few hundred applications for asylum, increasing to almost 12,000 in 2002. Partly due to the establishment of Ireland's stringent direct provision system in 2000, the numbers of international protection applicants made in Ireland declined steadily from 2002 (Arnold et al., 2018: 12). Reflecting a recent upward trend, this number was about 18,500 in 2024 compared to some 13,000 in 2023, with Nigeria, Jordan, Pakistan, Somalia and Palestine the most common countries of origin (IPO, 2024).

In the late 1990s, ideas and attitudes among the white Irish majority surfaced about Irish identity, difference, ‘race’ and ‘gender’ and who should or should not have access to Irish citizenship. This culminated in a 2004 referendum in which a majority voted to make Irish citizenship contingent on the legal residence of either parent for three of the four years prior to the birth, amending a previously inclusive ‘birth right’ model. However, stereotyping and ‘othering’ by the white middle-class establishment along racial lines has a long history in Ireland that predated these developments, evidenced, for example, in the discriminatory treatment of mixed-race children in Ireland's ‘mother and baby’ homes and ‘industrial schools’ (AMRI, 2018). A recent study on integration into Irish society found significant variation in integration journeys according to country and region of origin (McGinnity et al., 2020). While migrants are likely to be more highly educated than their Irish-born counterparts, the research found ‘most first-generation migrants have higher chances of being unemployed when compared to respondents born in Ireland’ (McGinnity et al., 2020: iv) while black migrants are ‘1.6 times as likely to be unemployed as White migrants’ (ibid.: 83).

One of the most controversial aspects of Ireland's migration regime is direct provision used to accommodate protection applicants. Residents are excluded from social welfare entitlements and must wait six months to gain conditional entry into the labour market. They can access free public healthcare, and children attend primary and secondary schools on par with citizens. However, centres are dispersed countrywide, often in remote areas with few amenities. Residents receive basic ‘bed and board’ and a small weekly allowance and are subject to high levels of institutional surveillance. In 2021, following a major review, the government agreed to replace direct provision with a more humane system. However, a continuing homelessness and housing crisis and the arrival of over 100,000 Ukrainian refugees since 2022 have contributed to the deprioritisation of promised reforms.

Wider tendencies across Europe of the normalisation of anti-immigrant views associated with various populist and right-wing political formations can also be seen in Ireland. This is most evident in protests at sites rumoured or confirmed to be designated locations to house protection applicants, actions to inflict damage on these sites, social media activity to mobilise community opinion against immigrants, and incidents of anti-immigrant or racist behaviour in public. To date, an overtly anti-immigrant agenda has not taken hold in any of the main political parties, with independent politicians most likely to express directly anti-immigrant sentiments. However, a shift is underway in the articulation of the Irish ‘national project of belonging’ as the current centre-right Government attempts to walk a line between embracing immigration as ‘a good thing for Ireland’, while also asserting the necessity for Ireland to attend to ‘the borders of the European Union’, alluding to the recently agreed EU Migration Pact intended to coordinate and accelerate, on a regional basis, the processing of protection applications and the speedy ‘return’ of failed applicants (McCurry and Sherlock, 2024).

On the issue of GBV, despite significant legal and policy advances in recent years, it remains a pervasive problem in Ireland. Women's Aid recorded almost 40,048 disclosures of domestic abuse against women and children in 2023. There is little data available on the share of migrant women using services, but some evidence suggests it is in the region of 20% in the Dublin area (Women's Aid, 2019). AkiDwA, the national network of migrant women, estimates that about 6000 women in Ireland have undergone FGM (Munyi et al., 2021) and highlights growing anecdotal evidence of early and forced marriages (AkiDwA, 2022). Regarding human trafficking, Ireland has recorded approximately 40 victims per year since 2019, widely viewed as a severe underestimation.

The accounts of migrant women discussed in the following subsections reveal the presence of well-documented additional obstacles that many migrant women who are experiencing GBV must navigate, including language barriers, social isolation, racism and/or discrimination, limited or no independent income, uncertain immigration status, a lack of information about rights and entitlements they might have (Nasc, 2015: 2), as well as barriers of ‘cultural norms and stigma’ (AkiDwA, 2020: 2). In particular, international protection applicants are not eligible to receive public funds and services normally used in providing support to victims of GBV, including access to refuge accommodation or medium-to-long-term safe accommodation, social welfare payments or housing supports (Reilly et al., 2021). More generally, satisfying the different criteria of the right to reside (Habitual Residence Condition) poses a major barrier to accessing publicly funded services and payments for victims of GBV who are without the required immigration status or who are undocumented.

Part III. Migrant women's experiences of GBV in Ireland

Introduction

The migrant women whose stories are presented here reflect different socio-economic positionings, identities, and normative value commitments. The nexus of bordering and the coloniality of gender is especially apparent in their experiences. In the subsections that follow, we apply a situated intersectional analysis, organised around the concepts of ‘bordering’ and ‘belonging’. In doing so, we foreground the lived realities of the operation of ‘additional obstacles’ experienced by migrant women navigating GBV in Ireland, particularly affecting those who are seeking international protection, have come to Ireland as a dependent spouse, or who become undocumented.

Bordering

For international protection applicants, the asylum-seeking process constitutes an omnipresent bordering mechanism as applicants navigate the bureaucracy of making an application and then await its uncertain outcome, often for years, fearful of anything that might happen to derail their chances of being allowed to stay and to gain the ‘right to have rights’ in Ireland. A majority of protection applicants live in direct provision accommodation centres, which are quintessential spaces of ‘everyday bordering’ (Yuval-Davis et al., 2019: 97), signalling residents’ ‘difference from’ and subordination to Irish nationals.

GBV in direct provision

Intrusions into private life and the indignities of routine surveillance in direct provision were highlighted by Hana, who came to Ireland from a country in Southern Africa with her then husband and small daughter. Having no formal qualifications in her home country, Hana initially worked in Ireland as an office cleaner before getting a job with an NGO. Regarding her life in direct provision, Hana explained,

You can’t have your visitors in your own room. […] [You] have to meet with them where there are cameras in an open space […] [while accommodation managers] can come in to check your room where they don’t tell anyone, they just come in.

Also, Hana shared,

[Even] simple things that you could buy for yourself, you must rely on others to give. You need to go and ask for toilet paper, and they are counting how many times you are taking it a week. So even going down and asking for it, it is very hard.

In this challenging context, Hana relayed that her husband had ‘continued to be abusive’ after they first came to Ireland but said that ‘I took it for a few months because I had that fear as well that maybe I will not be granted protection’. Hana's reckoning – that if she attempted to address her husband's violence it could affect her immigration status – reveals the effects of bordering, by which Hana perceived herself as someone who was not entitled to protection against domestic violence.

Because Hana's husband had ‘openly abused’ and hit her, the police came and Hana was temporarily ‘separated from him’, after which she contacted a domestic violence support organisation for assistance. But such organisations are also tied into the implementation of bordering and Hana was told ‘they could not take [her] into the women's refuge, and [she] needed to be accommodated in another direct provision centre’. The ability of women's refuges to meet the costs of accommodating women escaping GBV depends upon the women assisted being eligible to receive various social welfare payments. In this sense, domestic violence support organisations are enjoined in everyday bordering that denies international protection applicants access to key supports, on par with women who are citizens or have permanent residence status, which might enable them to escape domestic violence.

Elena, an early school leaver from a different country in Southern Africa, came to Ireland seeking international protection after experiencing sexual violence in her country. Now living in direct provision and a single mother of a baby, Elena, recounted,

There is a lot of domestic violence [in direct provision centres]. […] The victim […] doesn’t want to report the perpetrator […] [because they] do not want this migrant man compromised [in terms of his immigration status]. And they keep quiet at the expense of their own safety.

Also, Elena notes, ‘[You think], what did you do that made him act like that? So, you end up keeping quiet.’ In this example, Elena describes a situation in which migrant women experience multiple enmeshed oppressions together, infused by power relations of bordering, patriarchal heteronormativity, racialisation and neoliberal globalisation (marginalising those relying on the state).

The experiences outlined in this subsection underline the disempowering impact of direct state bordering through institutional isolation. Touching on themes addressed by Phillimore et al. (2023), as a system of segregated living, direct provision impedes the integration of residents into Irish society by design. In doing so, it models a ‘counter integration’ policy that increases the risks of residents experiencing GBV and severely limits victims’ access to basic supports.

Dependent and undocumented migrant women's experiences of GBV

Migrant women who came to Ireland as dependent spouses also described experiences that illuminate bordering and its interface with GBV. Gulab, educated to BA level, was 18 years old when she joined her husband in Ireland who was employed in a junior role in a supermarket. Both are from a Muslim-majority country in South Asia. Over the next 12 years, Gulab's husband increasingly subjected her to physical, financial, sexual and emotional forms of abuse. Exploiting Gulab's fears regarding her immigration status, she recalled her husband regularly ‘told me that if I go to the Garda, he will divorce me’. After Gulab's husband married a second wife (also from their home country), he took away Gulab's passport, money and mobile phone. At that point, she recounted how she drove to the police station with her children at 2 am in the morning to seek assistance, recalling, ‘at that time I didn’t have good English […] so I couldn’t say anything understandably’. Ultimately, this action led Gulab to contact a domestic violence organisation, and it supported her to obtain a protection order and commence a legal separation from her husband. Gulab's story reveals how her husband used his understanding of bordering processes and exploited his relatively secure immigration status to isolate and instil fear in his dependent spouse.

Joya also came to Ireland from a different Muslim-majority country in South Asia to join her husband, a migrant who held a high-skill post in a technology company. Holding a postgraduate qualification and formerly a finance sector employee in their home country, Joya found it very difficult to be excluded from the labour market as a dependent spouse (i.e., on a ‘Stamp 3’ visa). She elaborated,

For almost eight years I experienced [physical and emotional] abuse from my husband […] [who] wanted me to […] be a stay-at-home parent. […] The Stamp 3 made it worse and gave him the opportunity to exercise this control further because it took away my right to work.

Uzma, from a country in North Africa, also gave up her job to come to Ireland to join her husband who ‘had a respectable job as an engineer’. Uzma recounted how,

Being on a Stamp 3 [visa] took away my independence – I had to ask [my husband] for everything. […] I was isolated, lonely and barred from socialising by my husband. […] I was in a psychologically and physically abusive relationship. […] He controlled me, and I followed his instructions.

Uzma sought assistance and was accommodated in a women's refuge for two weeks with her baby. During this time, she relayed, ‘I got the courage and opportunity to start applying to change my visa status to […] give me the right to work.’ But her application was rejected, and the refuge could not extend her stay because ‘they were funded by the government’. Uzma said it felt like ‘the last nail in the coffin’ when she was forced to ‘go back home to my abuser’. During the Covid-19 lockdown, Joya reported, ‘the abuse got so bad’ that she also sought help from a domestic violence support organisation. She told them that she wanted to leave her husband but was advised that because she was not in an immediately ‘risky or life-threatening situation’, if necessary, she should ‘go to the Garda or hospital’ but she ‘would only be sheltered for a few days’. Ultimately, Joya reports, ‘I was scared to go [to the Garda] for legal action and felt the situation was not that serious.’

Gulab's, Joya's and Uzma's experiences demonstrate how the bordering practice of differentiated visa access for spouses heightens the risks of GBV for migrant women on a dependent visa. Their accounts further reveal how support organisations inevitably participate in bordering processes. For Joya, this entailed the setting of a higher bar, of ‘life-threatening’ danger, for her to access assistance than would usually apply to women experiencing GBV who are citizens or permanent residents. In Uzma's case, while noting she appreciated the help she received from the women's refuge, due to rules excluding most migrant women from accessing publicly funded refuge spaces, she concluded, ‘I was disappointed and rejected [by the government] when I was most vulnerable with my child.’

Similar patterns are found in the experience of undocumented migrant women. Rachel came to Ireland from a country in South America initially to study English and became undocumented when her student visa lapsed. She formed a relationship with an Irishman whose behaviour grew increasingly erratic linked to an alcohol problem. After two years, Rachel became pregnant and due to her undocumented status could no longer work. She became dependent on her partner, and they moved in with his parents. After her baby was born, Rachel recounted, ‘I couldn’t sleep because I was afraid that he [would] hurt me [because] he was too drunk.’ At one point Rachel telephoned a women's refuge but because she had a small amount of savings, she was told,

[We] can’t put you in a [refuge] because you don’t have your visa, and we can’t help you [financially] because you can support yourself.

Rachel felt she had no option but to ‘stick with the father of my baby’. One night, she recounted, her partner tried ‘to put the door down’ and, feeling ‘very scared’, Rachel called the Garda. After the police came and left when things appeared calm, her partner shouted,

You are crazy? […] You are alone here. You just have me, […] the only person who helps you, who gives you a roof, who gives you food, […] and you want to put [me] in prison.

Later, after Rachel was separated from her partner and managed to secure a rented house, in order to obtain food and baby supplies she had to rely on ad hoc assistance from a women's refuge and a religious charity. Demonstrating the bordering work of the so-called Habitual Residence Condition, Rachel recalls the rationale she was given by the authorities when she was refused the child benefit payment for her baby: ‘Because I have no ties in Ireland. I have no residency in Ireland and […] because I am not employed […] my future is uncertain.’

The experiences recounted in this subsection illustrate how immigration status plays a decisive role in exposing migrant women to GBV, influencing the forms and duration of the violence that they are subjected to, and determining the nature and level of support that is available to them in comparison to citizens and permanent residents. In particular, migrant women who are dependent spouses or undocumented are ‘set apart’ through indirect bordering practices that prevent them from accessing safe accommodation that could enable them to escape domestic violence in more timely and less obstructed ways. These findings echo themes in the literature, including the costs of ignoring the tangible impact of legal status on migrant women's experiences and survival of GBV (Keygnaert and Guieu, 2015), as well as failures to support migrant women's efforts to ‘secure their own safety’ (Maher and Segrave 2018).

Belonging

Histories of Ireland often centre on Irish resistance to British colonisation, but the story of Ireland also includes participation in the British Empire (e.g., through military or civil service), dissemination of Eurocentric education through Catholic missionary projects around the world, and the formation of a relatively privileged white, Anglophone Irish diaspora as part of late-20th-century globalisation. As such, Irish society and Irish people have been formed in the mainstream of Eurocentrism and its racialised and gendered imaginaries. In this section, we consider the links between ways of belonging and the forms of resistance and agency that have been drawn on by the migrant women who participated in our research. We discuss participants’ perceptions of Ireland and Irish people, including their experiences of and views on racism. We also consider the role of extended family and informal communities and networks, in Ireland and beyond, which have a bearing on migrant women's experiences of GBV and efforts to move beyond it.

Challenging sexism and racism and fostering hope

Flora, a survivor of trafficking originally from West Africa, was living in direct provision with her Irish-born baby at the time she spoke to us. She expressed resistance to the gender norms of her home country and explained how coming to Ireland had in some ways empowered her. She shared,

As a woman, I’ve been sexually assaulted, I’ve been raped. And I have to be a prostitute for money. But these things you can’t say [in my country], I’m kind of grateful for Ireland. In that sense that I can come out and say, ‘this has happened to me’, and I can get help.

Resonating with Lugones’ idea of spaces where defragmented resisters to multiple oppressions may find their whole voice, Flora noted, ‘one of the good things’ has been her contact with a support group for victims of trafficking, where she had the chance to talk with ‘other people who […] share their same experiences’. Flora frequently referred to her enrolment in an MA programme as a key part of her identity and emerging sense of belonging, noting that ‘since I came to Ireland, the [prospect of] study was giving me hope’. However, regarding how she feels about her place in wider Irish society, Flora identifies principally with ‘our people having to fight for justice’ and against racism. She stated starkly,

[T]here's nothing there to protect me. I feel that if something happens [to hurt me] my case will be forgotten. I always have that in my head if I am seeing teenagers before me. […] Because I don’t believe there is enough protection for me, as an African.

Elena spoke of obstacles to integration. She shared, ‘I don’t have any relationship with the [Irish] community except the people in the direct provision centre.’ Articulating a decolonial feminist perspective, Elena explained,

When it comes to migrant women, the whole [issue of] sexual objectification comes back immediately. It's very difficult to earn respect as a migrant woman. Especially for the black one. it's very hard because you need to break through the sexual barrier, break through the race barrier, break through the gender barrier.

In this context, Elena shared, ‘I am affiliated more with the black community.’ Most tellingly she imparts,

Honestly, if I put myself out there, actually integrating with the society, I feel like I am putting myself in harm's way.

Regarding her experience, Hana found,

Some Irish people are warm and welcoming, and some are racists and bullies. […] There are some who like you and some who don’t like you because of your accent and your skin colour.

Hana had positive interactions with the Garda and a women's domestic violence support organisation that supported her in obtaining a safety order, which she found very empowering. After her estranged husband was given access to their daughter, Hana was able to say to him: ‘I have this five-year safety order. I am going to the police if you ever cross the line, whether it is me or my daughter.’ Moving forward, highlighting the effort required to develop a sense of belonging in Ireland, Hana comments that ‘integrating into the [Irish] community […] is one of the hardest things that I am currently doing’.

For Joya, the ‘biggest issue for migrant women in abusive relationships is that they feel alone, helpless and hopeless’. Regarding Irish people, she offers,

So overall Irish people are good. But to be honest, a bit racist too. […] They would listen, know you, but they would not invite you to their home and make a close friendship with you. It won’t happen. There is always a gap that exists.

Like Flora, Joya reports positive experiences ‘while studying at the university’ where, she says, ‘they saw the potential in me, […] which boosts my confidence a lot.’ In the context of ‘the university and the workplace’, Joya found Irish people to be ‘helpful and supportive […] more open minded than my community’.

Families and normative value systems

In Gulab's story, the values and behaviours of family members in her home country exerted a powerful role in shaping her experience in Ireland. When she realised that her husband's economic situation in Ireland was much poorer than she had expected, going to his ‘dirty house’ for the first time, Gulab recalled, ‘you can’t imagine how terrible it was. And I couldn’t say these things to my parents. […] I was hiding everything.’ Seven months later, on a visit to their home country, Gulab's husband complained to his family that she was still not pregnant and threatened to divorce her. Gulab recounted, ‘My sister-in-law and my mother-in-law forcibly took me to the doctor, [who said I was] fine.’ After that her husband left her there for six months and did not communicate with her. Gulab's sister advised her ‘things will get better’, prompting Gulab to decide, ‘I would compromise in my life and ask him to take me back.’ After returning to Ireland, Gulab gave birth to the first of three children following a ‘very difficult’ C-section. Her mother-in-law visited Ireland, but Gulab recalled, they ‘left me alone in the hospital […] and my mother-in-law told my husband I am not a good woman’. At this juncture, Gulab reported that her husband ‘started to become violent to me every now and then’. However, Gulab underlined, ‘I kept thinking I have to keep the marriage.’ Through subsequent pregnancies the abuse continued, and the family's financial situation deteriorated before she went to the police and received help.

Regarding Gulab's experience of Irish society, even now as an Irish passport holder, she shared, ‘I don’t have any relations with any Irish people.’ Sometimes, she leaves her children with the mother of one of her children who is ‘very nice’, but, as Gulab said, ‘I don’t tell them what happened to me.’ At the same time, Gulab is alienated from her home country community. She shared,

I discussed my situation with a few friends. Unfortunately, they didn’t help me, and worst, they talked back about me. They said bad things about me in […] [my] community. I didn’t say anything about the Garda or anything. […] Just one friend know about these things. I am hiding these from the rest […] because I know that they will not understand.

Despite these conditions of isolation and non-belonging, Gulab expressed hope that she will be able to get training in childcare, social care or ‘something medical related’. The process of pursuing a separation from her husband has also given her confidence. As Gulab expressed it, ‘I am doing everything myself, like the legal paperwork and statements, I realised that I am not that bad after all.’

Originally from East Asia, Tae came to Ireland on a student visa. She recognises that her situation is relatively privileged insofar as she was not forced to migrate but came voluntarily to study. Tae shared,

I think the biggest [difficultly] is […] loneliness and trying to […] survive on your own, […] to really feel like you belonged. […] And, obviously, certain racist incidents.

Tae described one in particular that occurred as she was walking down a busy street, when an older man pushed her, and shouted loudly, ‘Go back to […] where you’re from.’ Although surrounded by people, Tae recalled, ‘No one stops to [to say], “Are you okay?”’ She continued, ‘The fact that everything around me was still going on as normally, I felt that discrepancy very difficult.’ She added, ‘I would just cry on my own. I didn’t even tell my parents because that would make them sad as well.’

Illustrating how gender oppression and racialisation are experienced as enmeshed, Tae shared, ‘sometimes it's confusing’ to figure out if such attacks happen ‘because I am racially ‘different’ or […] because I am [a] woman.’ But, she added, ‘I think I’m exposed way more to sexual harassment […] [than are] Asian men.’ Tae shared an example of dealing with a white Irish taxi driver. After she said something grammatically incorrect in English, like, ‘Could I get on the car?’ he said ‘No, you get in the car, but you can get on me.’ Tae commented, ‘I don’t think that would have happened if I were a man.’ Finally, capturing the role of familial networks in mediating belonging and affording access to social resources, Tae observed,

This is such a strange thing to say but I think it's only when I had a boyfriend that was Irish that you became part of a tribe or something, as […] before that you were […] floating around not quite fitting in everywhere. Once you become someone's partner, then their whole family has to talk to you.

Conclusion

In this article, we have applied a situated intersectionality analysis that avoids the starting point of viewing GBV experienced by migrant women as a symptom or extension of ‘the problem’ of racialised or marginalised women. We have put the experiences of migrant women in their own voices at the centre of our discussion, attending to differences in positionalities, identifications and values of participants and how these shaped their lived experiences. One notable common experience that emerged among migrant women who are international protection applicants from African countries concerns their relationship with wider Irish society. Flora described feeling unsafe in public places as ‘an African’. Elena equated trying to integrate into white Irish society with putting herself in ‘harm's way’. And Hana had found some Irish people to be ‘racist bullies’. At the same time, Flora expressed a positive identification with other survivors of trafficking as Elena did with the ‘black community’ in Ireland. These examples suggest the continued salience of group-based solidarity as a source of ‘social empowerment’ (Crenshaw) and potentially a space where ‘resistant knowledges’ and resistant ‘coalitional identities’ might emerge, challenging the coloniality of gender (Lugones).

Overall, we have foregrounded two thematic dimensions of migrant women's experiences of navigating and seeking to survive and move beyond GBV, namely, bordering and belonging. The theme of bordering brings into focus how state borders and bordering practices of government actors, and others enjoined in these practices, are implicated in the (re)production and perpetuation of GBV in the lived experience of migrant women. This arises not only due to failures to provide access to remedial supports to migrant women experiencing GBV, but in creating conditions that increase their risk of becoming victims of GBV in the first instance while withholding these supports. The stories of Hana, Joya, Rachel and Uzma, each of whom were blocked from accessing women's refuge accommodation at a critical juncture in their self-driven efforts to get the assistance they needed to escape from an abusive relationship, demonstrate how access to such accommodation is being used as an inhumane bordering mechanism.

Similarly, in our application of the theme of belonging, cognisant of the links between establishing a sense of belonging and hope for the future and the ability to make changes in the conditions of one's life, we highlighted different dimensions of belonging and unbelonging and their consequence for migrant women experiencing violence. First is the role of Irish society and Irish people in enabling or thwarting migrant women in building connections with Irish society. A recurring story of profound isolation of migrant women victims of GBV underlines the necessity for critical reflection on the part of concerned citizens – policymakers, individuals and support organisations – regarding actions that can be taken to change this narrative. Second is the influence of family and community networks in fuelling or ameliorating GBV. For example, Gulab's story illustrates how family members and communities can be major obstacles to surviving and moving beyond GBV. Tae's account shows how consideration for the feelings of family members not in Ireland can prevent victims from seeking help while feelings of belonging remain contingent on conforming with heteronormative gender roles within Irish society.

Finally, the theme of belonging also makes visible how migrant women are creating new ways of belonging and hope for the future. In the absence of a meaningful Irish national integration policy, migrant women survivors of GBV are turning to education, training and employment as they imagine a future for themselves beyond surviving in their new home country. As we anticipate the implementation of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, Ireland is on the brink of changes in migration policy in which, in Puar's assemblage terms, ‘anything could happen’, with many human rights advocates fearing change will be for the worse. It is more urgent than ever that interventions will be made to end inequalities based on immigration status in accessing lifesaving and life-transforming services for migrant women experiencing GBV.