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Abstract

Aboriginal women globally face extreme risk of violence and their exposure to domestic and family violence (DFV) and state sanctioned violence is increasing. Attention to the impact on Aboriginal mothering is lacking and is underpinned by issues of social justice. This study employs Critical Interpretive Synthesis to examine the evidence on Aboriginal mothering through DFV. Serrant-Green’s Silences Framework was used to structure the critique, understand its problematics and generate an argument to counter the evidential silence. From 6,117 search results, ten publications were reviewed, only four of which substantially addressed Aboriginal mothering in the context of family and domestic violence; a conspicuous absence from the literature about Aboriginal women, children, and mothering. Studies addressing Aboriginal women’s experience of DFV did not credit the issue of mothering. Equally, studies that did address mothering through violence were generally not inclusive of Aboriginal women. Silence, therefore, sits at the nexus of DFV, Aboriginal women, and mothering. While violence against Aboriginal women is acknowledged as a social ill, inattention to mothering in research represents a disregard for Aboriginal women’s mothering identities and roles. Aboriginal women’s voice and citizenship are critical to addressing this issue.

Keywords

aboriginal mothering domestic and family violence

Introduction

Domestic and family violence (DFV) is a prominent issue around the world, with profound impacts for women and their mothering roles. Globally, Aboriginal women experience a significantly higher risk of violence than other groups of women, and their exposure to DFV and state sanctioned violence is increasing (United Nations Women, 2016). This article presents the findings of a Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS) (Dixon-Woods et al., 2005) of the academic literature, designed to critically examine the evidence on Aboriginal women's experiences of mothering through DFV. The CIS method is complemented by the Silences Framework (Serrant-Green, 2011), which provides a theoretical lens to explore the DFV experiences of Aboriginal women and how they have been represented in scholarship over a period of twenty years.

The synthesis was developed to theorize the specific impact that DFV has upon Aboriginal mothers and the nature of their mothering. Our interest in identifying silences and ‘missing voices’ when considering Aboriginal mothering and DFV reflects a deficit of attention to detail regarding Aboriginal women and mothers across international academic scholarship, policy, and practice (Lavell-Harvard & Lavell, 2006; Oscar, 2020). By systematically examining research relevant to this phenomenon, we aimed to locate and privilege an Aboriginal women's standpoint (Moreton-Robinson, 2013) within the wider theorizing of DFV and mothering. We approached this CIS study from a combined expertise in Aboriginal women's standpoint (Author 1), qualitative research (Author 2), and DFV (Author 3), and applied this through a social work and social justice lens. This study is of importance to legal, health, welfare, and DFV policymakers, and holds significant implications for social work practice, particularly in relation to child welfare and protection services, which are disproportionately engaged with Aboriginal families often due to DFV (Krakouer et al., 2018). Critical examination of silences that operate within the colonial and patriarchal systems is essential for social workers given the intersectional position of Aboriginal women (Moreton-Robinson, 2013).

Background

In Australia, DFV is a major public health issue that disproportionately impacts upon Aboriginal women who are significantly over-represented in all DFV statistics, experiencing violence 35 to 80 times the national average (AIHW, 2019; Langton, 2016; Spinney, 2016). These concerning statistics also relate to Aboriginal children's over-representation within the child protection system and their rapidly growing numbers in out-of-home-care services as a result of DFV (Krakouer et al., 2018). These are particularly important social work practice areas. Despite international acknowledgment of these issues, the distinct experiences of Aboriginal women and their deep contextual perspectives and meanings are missing in the literature and across policy and practice landscapes.

Australian national data overwhelmingly reinforces DFV as a gendered issue (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2020; Australian Institute of Health & Welfare [AIHW], 2019), including for Aboriginal women (McGlade, 2012; Oscar, 2020). This reflects an international trend. However, the intersectional complexities underpinning Aboriginal women's lived experience of DFV are numerous. Crenshaw (1991), who popularized the use of the term ‘intersectionality’ to refer to a theory of cumulative sites of discrimination that produce a unique experience, states:

[B]ecause of their intersectional identity as both women and of color within discourses that are shaped to respond to one or the other, women of color are marginalized within both. Any pervasive structural dialogue which fails to recognise the nuanced experiences of individuals has the flow on effect of relegating their stories to ‘a location that resists telling’ (p. 1242).

The silences identified within this study are the locations that Crenshaw (1991) suggests. Furthermore, Moreton-Robinsons (2013) work toward an Australian Aboriginal women's standpoint lays out the foundations for understanding their distinct ways of being, knowing, and doing in the world. It is a situated conception of self that privileges the gendered knowledge of Aboriginal women and challenges the partiality of patriarchal and colonial knowledge (Moreton-Robinson, 2013). Whilst articulated as Australian-specific, its privileging of an Aboriginal women's standpoint offers an epistemology for understanding the silences present across the international DFV landscape.

The international literature on mothering in contexts of DFV is small, relative to the total DFV literature, and challenges the normative or deficit models of mothering that include discourses of ‘good mothering’ or pathologized ‘failed’ mothering (Buchanan, 2018; Humphreys et al., 2020; Lapierre, 2008). A distinct feature of this body of work is the silence about Aboriginal women and their mothering experiences in the context of DFV.

The literature on Aboriginal women and DFV is growing but often encompasses an ingrained colonial discourse that silences gender and its nuances (Kuokkanen, 2017; Langton et al., 2020). Though few, the exceptions to this are clear in their calls to address the issue using a gendered or intersectional approach (McGlade, 2012; Olsen, 2018).

Finally, the literature on Aboriginal mothering is a vast international body of work however the silences here arise from minimal referencing to DFV (Brant, 2014; Connor, 2014; Parkes & Zufferey, 2020).

The interface of DFV, mothering, and an Aboriginal women's standpoint is significant in determining positive outcomes for Aboriginal mothers and their children and it is here, we maintain, that the silences across the broader DFV literature culminate. This body of literature is small but offers an important (but mostly unheard) counter-narrative. It distinctly challenges the multiple layers of narrative tropes, discourse dominance, and theoretical tensions within DFV theorization that ‘resist telling’. This resistance is situated within the dynamic of the relationship between Aboriginal women and the state, which is both racialized and gendered across the world (Pettman, 1996). The invisibility of Aboriginal women within this dynamic impact upon their experience of gendered citizenship that Green (2017) describes as “an enforced relationship that subordinates, while it also mediates the most egregious excesses of power” (p. 172).

The silences that arise from such a tense relationship, and the policy and practice gaps they create, are detrimental to the safety, well-being, and integrity of Aboriginal women (Davis, 2012). They also hide measures of capability, such as resilience, which provide important insights into how Aboriginal women operationalize their mothering, despite the structural barriers they face. Durie’s (2006) definition of resilience “provides an alternate perspective” that allows the challenges faced by Aboriginal women “to be reconfigured as a search for success rather than an explanation for failure” (p. 13). This definition contests failure as a measurement of Aboriginal mothering and seeks to leverage capabilities and sustained survival or negotiating mechanisms in meaningful ways to support agency and empowerment.

The counter-narrative that sits at the interface of DFV, mothering, and an Aboriginal women's standpoint offers a portrait of resilient and agentic Aboriginal mothers who understand the complexities in which they mother their children and who hold important insights for DFV policy change. We present this article as a new contribution to the literature at this interface by asking two questions: (1) What does the literature say about Aboriginal mothering through DFV? (2) How does the literature inform our understanding of Aboriginal women's resilience and the supports they require?

Method

CIS is a method of review which draws on traditional systematic review methodology, whilst incorporating a distinct qualitative method of enquiry (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006). It is an established method of critically reviewing literature regarding DFV and child sexual abuse (Isobe et al., 2020; McKibbin et al., 2016). Conventional systematic reviews aim to test theories, for which an aggregative approach to evidence is recommended (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006). Analysis of aggregated data rests upon its assemblage and builds upon the comparability of the data and well-specified domains to construct a summary and appraisal. In contrast, CIS centers induction and interpretation, rather than aggregation and summarization, to synthesize the literature and generate theory with strong explanatory power (Dixon-Woods et al., 2005, 2006).

Dixon-Woods et al. (2006) describe CIS as a method for questioning the nature of the literature itself, stating “… few have treated the literature they examine as itself an object of scrutiny” (p. 2). CIS enabled this review to critique and challenge the assumptive nature of the literature regarding Aboriginal mothering and DFV and its problematic perpetuation of colonial and patriarchal tropes.

The CIS approach prescribes three stages toward developing a theoretical understanding. First, thematic categories are identified from the initial data extraction process. Through a second stage of critical examination and synthesis these are then reconceptualized into higher order synthetic constructs. The final stage seeks to draw together the constructs, to understand their interaction with one another, into a final synthesizing argument (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006).

A Silences Framework

Serrant-Green’s (2011) Silences Framework, which usefully aligns with the CIS design, offers a model of engagement with marginal discourses and silenced voices. The framework determines that “‘silences’ reflect viewpoints and information that are not openly stated, heard or evidenced in the available (mainstream or easily accessible) bodies of literature related to a specific subject” (p. 348). The Silences Framework brings theoretical rigor to exploration of research gaps generated by mainstream discourses and has been used to recognize marginal standpoints and ‘othered’ discourses such as research about Black Caribbean men and sexual health (Serrant-Green, 2004). In this instance, the framework is used to identify critical areas of the DFV discourse that are silenced in order to highlight their significance in addressing Aboriginal mothers’ needs. The knowledge held within the silences, we contend, hold particular relevance to advancing the conversation about Aboriginal women and DFV.

Applying the Silences Framework within the CIS approach revealed significant research gaps about Aboriginal mothering and DFV that enabled the generation of a synthesized argument. The framework has four stages (see Table 1) that were applied to the CIS to contextualize, locate, verbalize, and discuss the silences as a central process for generating a theoretical understanding of the literature (Serrant-Green, 2011). Stage one has been addressed throughout the introduction and background, locating the focus of this synthesis within the academic literature over a period of twenty years.

Table 1.

Alignment of the Silences Framework and Traditional Aspects of Research (Janes et al., 2018; Serrant-Green, 2011).

The silences framework	Traditional research process
Stage 1 Working in silences – sets the context for the research through a critical literature review.	Introduction, background, and literature review
Stage 2 Hearing silences – sets out to locate the silences at the center of the planned research by positioning the researcher, identifying the issue and the associated silences, and identifying the research participants or those most effected by the silences.	Methodology and study design
Stage 3 Voicing silences – aims to collect data that will verbalize the situated experiences of those involved through appropriate research design, inclusion of marginalized voices, and a cyclical researcher/participant reflective process.	Data collection and analysis/synthesis
Stage 4 Working with silences – seeks to discuss and reflect upon the silences heard as a result of the research, identifying the impact of the findings on the current context.	Discussion and recommendations

Search Strategy

The literature search strategy involved a formal database search conducted in the following online databases on July 7, 2020: SocINDEX; Family-ATSIS, Family & Society Studies Worldwide; PsycINFO; MEDLINE; and Cinahl. On 2 August 2020, the same search was conducted in the Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts database. The databases were selected for their relevance and were confirmed by a university librarian. A 20-year time frame was placed upon publication date and the searches were limited to English-only studies.

Search terms across three primary concepts, and their synonyms, were constructed to form the search strategy within seven databases. The primary concepts were family and domestic violence, Aboriginal and mother (see Table 2). A search was conducted in each database using the three concept terms, and synonyms, combined using ‘AND’ to create the search strategy. A further search of Google Scholar was conducted, and the citation lists of selected full-text papers were also manually searched to retrieve additional relevant papers. The search returned 6,117 results.

Table 2.

Search Strategy and Results for Aboriginal Mothering Through DFV Using Search Terms Across Three Concepts.

S1 – Concept 1
“intimate partner violence” OR “domestic abuse” OR “family violence” OR “family abuse” OR “lateral abuse” OR “lateral violence” OR “domestic violence” OR “intimate partner abuse” OR batter* OR “Elder abuse” OR “Elder violence” OR “interpersonal abuse” OR “interpersonal violence” OR “spous* abuse” OR “sexual abuse” OR “sexual assault” OR “child abuse”
S2 – Concept 2
Aboriginal* OR “Torres Strait Islander*” OR Maori* OR “First Nation*” OR Inuit* OR “Native American*” OR Indigenous OR Metis OR Sami OR Sapmi OR Métis OR Sámi OR Sápmi OR Māori
(note: the last 4 terms with accents were not used in the PsychInfo search due to database constraints)
S3 – Concept 3
mother* OR mum* OR mom* OR women OR woman OR parent*

S1 AND S2 AND S3

Selection Criteria

After removing duplicates, 5,482 titles were read by the first author to identify papers that included or implied the three concept terms in their titles. Thirty-four were included for abstract review on the basis that they addressed a combination of the search terms and/or had an implied focus on the primary concepts. Abstracts were screened using a two-phase process that applied the above inclusion in the first phase, and then asked a further screening question: Does the nature of the article support hidden or silenced themes? This phase of screening applied Stage 2 of the Silences Framework, hearing silences, as it sought to locate the silences and capture papers that, while not ostensibly about Aboriginal mothering in the context of DFV, were nonetheless important to the research (see Table 3). The CIS selection process offered a reflexive threshold that enabled the inclusion of some papers that may have been otherwise excluded as they demonstrably supported the silences or hidden meanings about Aboriginal mothering in the context of violence (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006). For example, the inclusion of the Bartels (2012) paper offered insights about the criminalization of Aboriginal women in relation to DFV and the impact this has on their mothering. The criminalization of Aboriginal women as it relates to DFV and Aboriginal mothering is a distinct silence, and the inclusion of Bartels (2012) enabled us to locate the silence. Of the 34 abstracts, phases one and two of the screening process saw 3 and 7 papers selected for inclusion, respectively (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Flow diagram of search strategy.

Table 3.

Included Articles for Review.

Reference	Quality appraisal	Findings/themes	Thematic categories	Interface silences
Bartels (2012) Australia	Australian (NSW) Prison Data analysis. No stated Aboriginal research design. Marginalized voices are not included.	80% of Indigenous female prisoners are mothers with responsibility of their own plus additional kin children. Assault most common offense with links between DFV exposure, trauma & offending/incarceration. systemic gaps in the system ie housing upon release, access to mother/child prison units, lack of process for care arrangements for children.	Service systems.	Briefly addresses parenting responsibilities and nexus between DFV, offending, and mothering. Does not detail complexities.
Burnette and Cannon (2014) United States of America (USA)	Critical ethnography. No stated Aboriginal research design. Marginalized voices included.	29 Indigenous women. Paucity of research: found only 5 empirical US studies on DFV consequences for Indigenous women and none for children. Severity of violence and life-threatening abuse Emphasis on interconnection of consequences – beyond individual to family and community. Impact on mental health, including children, with suicide and cutting common.	Family, kinship, community. Prevalence, etiology, and impact.	No specific focus on mothering.
Burnette and Hefflinger (2016) USA	Critical ethnography. No stated Aboriginal research design. Marginalized voices included.	29 US Indigenous women. Most participants were mothers with av. 3 children, personal early history of exposure to violence. Role as mothers was evident but unnamed across 3 of the 6 stated themes of protective factors.	Service systems. Cultural values and protective factors.	No attention at all to mothering in the discussion.
Burnette (2017) USA	Critical ethnography. No stated Aboriginal research design. Marginalized voices included.	Examination of resilience factors based on 49 interviews with US Aboriginal women. Focus on Indigenous women and family support: families can be protective or risk factors for Indigenous women. Key themes for protection (1) family support (2) family affirming nonviolent values, (3) tight-knit extended family unity and connectedness, (4) Elders’ instilling Indigenous principles (5) enculturation fostering nonviolence and ethnic pride.	Family, kinship, community. Cultural values and protective factors.	No focus on Aboriginal women as mothers or mothering.
Dhunna et al. (2018) New Zealand	Longitudinal Kaupapa Māori Narrative study with a Māori researcher. Marginalized voices included.	49 Māori women and whanau interviewed, 6 selected to participate. Transforming impact of motherhood, mothers reclaimed their Māori identities. Important role models within the family (whanau). Criminalization of Maori mothers. Resistance: not passive, exercised agency. Etiology of colonial and patriarchal violence.	Family, kinship, community. Service systems. Women's voice and agency.	Indigenous motherhood in context of DV is the central focus.
Fox et al. (2018) USA	Mixed methods: survey and interview. No stated Aboriginal research design. Marginalized voices included.	Surveys with 37 US Indigenous women (clients) and 10 staff of a long-term DFV agency/shelter. Women's needs: safety, housing, benefits, transportation, counselling, healthcare, emotional support. Children's needs: safety, attention, counselling, emotional support, education, socialization. Safety was top need for both and housing, emotional support & others were overlapping needs.	Service systems. Women's voice and agency. Prevalence, etiology, and impact.	Little referencing of mothering, does refer to client needs re their children.
Palacios et al. (2014) USA	Community-based participatory research, interpretive phenomenology. No stated Aboriginal research design but utilized the Tribal Council. Marginalized voices included.	41 women were interviewed. explored the mothering experience and practices among reservation-based adult American Indian women who had been adolescent mothers - Mothers’ experience of DFV. Sets background with mothering theory, transformative nature of mothering. Findings: Interrupted mothering, mothering a community responsibility, breaking cycles, second chances, mother hen: childhood experiences of mothering (ie of siblings) just extended into their ‘own’ motherhood.	Family, kinship, community. Women's voice and agency. Cultural values and protective factors.	DFV and mothering closely reflected across the stories and thematic analysis.
Ryan and Wilson (2010) New Zealand	Kaupapa Māori Qualitative study with Māori researchers. Marginalized voices included.	Five women interviewed to explore the nature of child to mother violence from mother's perspective Mothers silenced by fear and shame but also by love for and wanting to protect their children. Findings: 1. Great secrecy and shame, lack of community and service supports, 2. Love: protect their children as well as fear of child removal or child leaving, 3. Service system unresponsive. 4. A new Journey: women decided to share their story.	Family, kinship, community. Service systems. Women's voice and agency.	Strong attention to mothering identities in the context of DFV.
Shepherd (2001) USA	Qualitative in-depth interviews. No stated Aboriginal research design. Marginalized voices included.	Exploration of Alaskan Indigenous women who have been in abusive relationships: 5 staff/4 clients of family violence shelter. Explores environmental and cultural context of DFV in remote community - Identifies women's support of one another. No police, issues with community policing. Inupiat values, difficult for women to seek help. Connectedness of families, protectiveness of men.	Family, kinship, community. Service systems. Women's voice and agency. Cultural values and protective factors.	Very little mention of mothering or Indigenous women as mothers – though one or two examples mention children.
Wilson et al. (2019) New Zealand	Kaupapa Māori, Qualitative with Māori researcher. Marginalized voices included.	In-depth interviews with 27 Maori women. explores constructions of love with a violent partner; what role traditional and cultural values play in the relationship. Active management of the safety and protection of their children which goes unrecognised. It begins with a connection: pattern of violence. Downplaying the signs: Narrative of strong women. Needing to leave: realizing their manaakitanga and aroha could not address the serious issues of partners.	Family, kinship, community. Service systems. Women's voice and agency. Cultural values and protective factors. Prevalence, etiology, and impact.	Addresses mothering and DFV.

The full text of 10 papers was reviewed for inclusion in the synthesis using the inclusion criteria described above. All selected full-text papers were read by the first author and half by the second and third authors each to assess for inclusion. All papers met the inclusion criteria and were therefore accepted for synthesis (see Table 3).

Data Extraction

The authors extracted the methods and main findings of each paper, including whether it directly addressed Aboriginal mothering in the context of DFV, and considering if the lack of reference to either of these, as intersecting issues, constituted a ‘silence’. The main themes of each paper, presented in Table 3, were identified and coded into five thematic categories: family, kinship, community, generations; service systems; women's voice and agency; cultural values and protective factors; and prevalence, etiology (cause), and impact. The ‘silences’ were identified through a process of critical examination by the authors.

The authors made an a priori decision that the papers included for synthesis had met our basic criteria and would therefore remain, but a brief quality appraisal was conducted to identify two critical features. The first was an assessment of whether and/or to what extent each study privileged Aboriginal epistemologies (Harfield et al., 2020) (see Table 3). This was determined by research design and how it operated “towards capturing understandings that are specific to Indigenous peoples” (Harfield et al., 2020, p. 2). The second was the inclusion of marginalized voices and lived experience that would address Stage 3 of the Silences Framework, voicing silences. Together, the two features were identified to understand the papers’ contribution toward the literature at the interface of DFV, mothering, and an Aboriginal women's standpoint and how they perpetuated or challenged silence.

Results

Synthetic Constructs

The five thematic categories developed through the data extraction were reconceptualized into three synthetic constructs: service systems, mothering identities and relationships and complexities of safety, see Figure 2. These were generated through a process of critical examination with a focus on Aboriginal mothering, and by synthesizing the ontological and epistemological positioning of the dominant themes in the papers, including the silences that were identified through the data collection method.

Figure 2.

Research themes reconceptualized into synthetic constructs using the silences framework.

Stage 3 of the Silences Framework, voicing silences, aims to “expose the situated views and experiences of those involved” (Serrant-Green, 2011, p. 355). The synthetic constructs provided a frame within which the exposed silences at the interface of DFV, mothering, and Aboriginal women's standpoint could be determined and then inform the overall synthesizing argument. Interestingly, Dhunna et al. (2018), Ryan and Wilson (2010), and Wilson et al. (2019) were the only studies that satisfied both quality appraisal features by privileging Aboriginal epistemology through Māori-led research design and methodology (Kaupapa Māori) and engaging Māori mothers’ (marginalized) voices. Each of these papers challenged the silences at the interface of DFV, mothering, and Aboriginal women's standpoint by directly focusing on Māori mothering and DFV. Palacios et al. (2014) also had this focus. This paper did not specify a distinct Aboriginal research design but noted its community-based participatory research design with a focus on lived experience and its engagement with the Tribal Council.

Service systems

The literature identified systemic gaps and failures both within and across service systems in relation to Aboriginal mothering and the safety of women and their children in the context of DFV. The power and control over women's lives exercised by the state were evident across all papers. Cultural safety was identified as paramount by most of the papers but was generally acknowledged to be lacking across government institutions. Aboriginal services were identified as helpful but plagued by under-resourcing and being small scale and therefore unable to provide the long-term complex support required.

Dhunna et al. (2018) recognized a lack of culturally safe mental health support for the young mothers in their study and identified a narrative of deficit-oriented victim-blaming that pervaded welfare service provision and which systematically challenged the young women's credibility. This led to a pervasive lack of trust in and fear of services which Ryan and Wilson (2010) determined “reinforced the need to maintain secrets to prevent their child from being taken away” (p. 31). Dhunna et al. (2018) called for the decolonization of social service institutions to shift the paradigm of service provision to Māori mothers and their families. Shepherd (2001) and Fox et al. (2018) demonstrated in their studies of a Navajo Nation women's shelter and rural Alaskan community, respectively, the importance of access to social services, safe housing, and appropriate, DFV-informed law enforcement. Neither Shepherd (2001) nor Fox et al. (2018), however, made mention of mothering in their consideration of women's and children's distinct needs, nor did these studies utilize specific Indigenous methodology or design beyond engagement with the agency coordinator/director.

Aboriginal women's decision-making, agency, self-reliance, and resilience were identified as significant factors that service systems consistently ignored or did not recognize. Of note, Wilson et al. (2019) found in their study of 27 Māori women that the mothers’ “rangatiratanga [authority and leadership] enabled active management of the safety and protection of their children and themselves in complex and often volatile situations” (p. 20). Resilience, or a “search for success,” was presented by Wilson et al. (2019), Dhunna et al. (2018), and Burnette and Hefflinger (2016) in the form of active resistance and self-determination that women used to engage the supports they needed. Referred to as “conscientious help-seeking” by Dhunna et al. (2018), this enabled women to engage the police, for example, with some agentic understanding that the service may impede their requests through a construction of them as helpless and lacking agency, or through being silenced (p. 13). Often motivated by significant threats to their children, this active engagement was underpinned by need, but also scaffolded with self-reliance when services were unresponsive. Self-reliance was described by Burnette and Hefflinger (2016) as being instilled in women from a young age, a tool of resistance and survival in the context of unresponsive service systems. Culturally framed imperatives of resilience through self-reliance therefore offered women a survival kit when faced with a service system that too often disregarded the complexities of their lives.

Mothering identities and relationships

Aboriginal women's mothering identities and the roles and relationships they have within these were defined through a lens of cultural imperatives and/or colonial patriarchal constructions. There was a consistent message that women are positioned to care for community. Wilson et al. (2019) referred to manaakitanga [caring for others] in their examination of Māori values in women's relationships with violent partners. Similarly, Palacios et al. (2014) identified “mothering a community” as a central theme to American Indian women whose mothering roles across generations underpinned a desire to break cycles of violence. Burnette and Cannon (2014) also distinguished the broader family impacts of DFV and positioned women as central to healing across generations. The cultural imperative to care for others, often referenced in relation to family or community, was central to women's roles in Aboriginal society.

The silences across the DFV literature, however, were stark in relation to Aboriginal women's care of themselves. Likewise, the care they specifically provided to children through their nuanced mothering was usually not referred to or detailed.

The nature of Aboriginal women's relationality and connectedness with one another as a protective factor and a source of resilience in the context of violence was a consistent theme. Fleeing to the homes of other women and standing up for one another (Shepherd, 2001), healing through Māori women's groups (Ryan & Wilson, 2010), and the companionship of other Māori mothers (Dhunna et al., 2018), were all foregrounded as critically important in women's exertion of resistance strategies and agency. Support found in women's kinship was through relationships with Nans (grandmothers), other Aboriginal women in the community, and female family members.

Interestingly, Burnette (2017) and Burnette and Hefflinger (2016) made no mention of women's relationality (or mothering) in their examination of protective factors and women's resilience. These studies also had no indication of an Aboriginal epistemological foundation nor a stated Aboriginal research design or methodology.

Aboriginal mothering itself was framed positively across the four papers that mentioned it. Dhunna et al. (2018) described the mothering experience of a cohort of six young Māori mothers who drew from their experience of DFV as “a transformative force … that gave [them] immense strength” (p. 12). Agency, drawn from a strong sense of motherhood, was also a defining factor for participating women, in keeping themselves and their children safe (Palacios et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2019). Palacios et al. (2014) found that for many women, mothering often started in childhood. Care of siblings, household chores, and the worry of safety during childhood shaped many women's mothering across their lifespan, rippling across to their own children and encompassing extended kin and community children (Palacios et al., 2014). Responsive mothering practices were highlighted and framed by cultural values of care and responsibility (Palacios et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2019).

The positive culturally framed articulations of motherhood were also bound by sociopolitical, patriarchal, and colonial constructions of Aboriginal women and mothering. Aboriginal mothering, as a carrier of culture, has long been a target of colonial powers and purposefully othered, promoting notions of failure and ineptitude. Victimization and criminalization both form the common discourse (Bartels, 2012). Illustrated by Dhunna et al. (2018), western colonial ideologies of the ‘good’ woman position Aboriginal mothers as unfit and morally bereft, amplified in the context of DFV. The state, service systems, and society respond to Aboriginal women accordingly, so women are plagued with deficit-oriented tropes and stigma that impede access to care and support (Dhunna et al., 2018). Ryan and Wilson (2010) and Dhunna et al. (2018) referred to the blame often placed upon Māori mothers and its impact upon help-seeking. Such experiences contribute to a vicious cycle, limiting critical services and supports to Aboriginal women, and ensuring their entrapment in violent relationships. In turn, they are held responsible for the violence. Mothers in particular are criminalized and punished, and the ‘blame game’ starts again (Dhunna et al., 2018).

Complexities of safety

Family was a central theme across the papers, identified as both a protective factor and a risk factor for women experiencing DFV. Ryan and Wilson (2010) noted the complexities facing Māori mothers, as the recognized guardians of whanau [family] well-being when there is violence. For some, the support, protection, and love of family were sustaining and helpful, but for many others family were unable to offer what was required and were often, themselves, the source of violence (Burnette & Cannon, 2014; Dhunna et al., 2018; Wilson et al., 2019). Shepherd (2001) stated that “the strong value placed on family… can make it difficult for abused women to seek help” (p. 505). This was supported by Dhunna et al. (2018), who described “the tendency for whanau members to deny the women's accounts of violence, to hide it, to blame the victim of violence, and to prevent open communication or condemnation of violence” (p. 14). The complexities of family acting as both a protective factor and one through which violence is perpetuated are little explored across the literature, with distinct silences about Aboriginal mothers who are positioned at the intersection of this dichotomy.

Inadequate state responses to Aboriginal women's safety were also a recurring theme. Bartels (2012) identified the nature of Aboriginal women's imprisonment and offending as highly reflective of their exposure to violence. The precarious position of many Aboriginal women was made more so in their decision to ask for help; threats of child removal left women feeling helpless (Ryan & Wilson, 2010). Significant numbers of Aboriginal female prisoners have primary care responsibilities for their own and others’ children but have limited access to support programs (such as Mothers and Children's Units) whilst in prison and upon release (Bartels, 2012). Referencing a retrospective study of adult prisoners in NSW between 1988 and 2002, Bartels (2012) also noted that Aboriginal women were 12.6 times more likely to die after release from custody. Aboriginal men were 4.8 times more likely. Burnette and Cannon (2014) reported PTSD, self-harm, and suicide attempts as among the consequences of Aboriginal women's exposure, and that of their children's, to DFV. Aboriginal women experiencing DFV are caught at the interface of cultural imperatives, unhelpful and unresponsive service systems, and family and community that are often unable to respond. Silence among families, confusing support systems, and complex expectations confounded women's experiences. Poverty was also a little acknowledged feature: this was revealed through systemic failures, such as opportunistic police arrest and subsequent imprisonment of Aboriginal women for fine defaulting when they called for assistance during a violent episode (Bartels, 2012; Dhunna et al., 2018).

Common themes across the papers were viewing culture as safety and (re)connection with cultural values, practices, and knowledge as a mechanism for healing. Shepherd (2001) includes connection to the land and cultural history as factors in considering women's safety. Concepts of new beginnings were framed around reconnecting to cultural values and identities (Dhunna et al., 2018; Ryan & Wilson, 2010; Wilson et al., 2019). A limited number of papers referred to the complex maternal journeys of Aboriginal women, underpinned by their racialized and gendered identities. Finding safety within cultural values required articulation of Aboriginal women's gendered citizenship (Dhunna et al., 2018; Wilson et al., 2019), and acknowledgment that the restoration of Aboriginal women's representation and gendered cultural values were important to achieving change and equitable citizenship.

Discussion

Our analysis of the literature revealed several themes that responded to the research questions about mothering through DFV. These themes informed our understanding of Aboriginal women's resilience and the supports they require. Ten papers were analyzed using critical examination and synthesis across the three synthetic constructs: service systems, mothering identities and relationships, and complexities of safety, see Figure 2.

The findings presented several dichotomies that compromise the safety of Aboriginal women and their children and perpetuate silence about DFV. Unacknowledged power and control over Aboriginal women's lives at both state and community levels presented conflicting demands on Aboriginal mothers who live with DFV, rendering them without adequate support. Resilience, however, was also revealed through the analysis, and offered a counter-narrative that demonstrated Aboriginal women's resistance and self-represented voice against DFV. Overall, these findings underpin the authors’ CIS-informed synthesizing argument, that Aboriginal women's voice and self-representation must be supported and made central to addressing the dichotomies of safety and silence for mothers living with DFV.

Stage 4 of the Silences Framework, working with silences, requires articulation of the identified silences and their impact upon the issue. It is used to explain how the synthetic constructs interact with one another and how Aboriginal women's representation of themselves can address the systemic silence that underpins Aboriginal women's experiences of DFV. Understanding Aboriginal women's own lived experience of DFV is important to implementing change. The interaction and synthesis of each of the synthetic constructs, as they are collectively experienced by Aboriginal women, provide a unique portrayal of DFV service systems and how Aboriginal mothers interface with them. Indifferent systems, cultural imperatives, and a colonial patriarchy create unnavigable complexities, managed only through women's agency, resilience, and relationships with one another.

Our analysis of the literature revealed victim-blaming and a silencing phenomenon that resulted in apathetic systems and ineffectual policy. Across the selected papers there was evidence that described constructions of Aboriginal women and mothers as either victims and helpless, or as criminals and therefore not worthy of support (Bartels, 2012; Dhunna et al., 2018; Ryan and Wilson, 2010). Such persistent constructions sustained the silences surrounding Aboriginal motherhood and DFV. Indeed, the opposite was also true, that women resisted violence through agency, resilience, and nuanced “safety knowledges” (Richardson & Wade, 2010). The cultural values that Aboriginal mothers used to sustain their mothering identities and practices, resilience, and agency in the context of violence were often identified as the very values used against them, creating impossible systemic and community complexities for women to navigate.

The dichotomies presented in the literature revealed unresponsive systems and struggling Aboriginal families and communities leaving Aboriginal women without the services and safety support they required for themselves and their children. They also revealed expressions of deep, entrenched colonial and patriarchal ideologies and tensions that informed health and welfare policy (Dhunna et al., 2018), and which consistently damaged Aboriginal women and children (Ryan & Wilson, 2010).

Langton (1993) states that “[t]he easiest and most ‘natural’ form of racism in representation is the act of making the other invisible” (p. 24). As a successful colonial strategy, historical erasure of Aboriginal women and the silencing of their mothering pervades the contemporary narrative. As a result, Aboriginal women's over-representation in DFV statistics is rendered unaddressed. Policy decisions in this environment are therefore ineffectual as they do not address the systems that reflect these ideologies, nor are they cognizant of the silent evidence base. Of note in this study was the relationship between Aboriginal research design (e.g., Kaupapa Māori) and engagement of marginalized voices that operated at the interface of DFV, mothering, and Aboriginal women's standpoint, to minimize the silences.

Oscar (2020) identifies Aboriginal women's gendered citizenship through self-representation as critically important to achieving equity and safety for Aboriginal women and their children. A culture of silence, power, and control is omnipresent in the DFV space, and is an evident complexity that promotes inequity across health care and welfare service delivery, impeding safety for vulnerable women. The dichotomies of silence and safety that position women in untenable circumstances with no recourse are willful and systemic, privileging a value-base that does not acknowledge the vulnerabilities or strengths of Aboriginal mothers. Silence about DFV occurs within families, communities, and across society. The safety of Aboriginal women and their children rests upon an embrace of their gendered citizenship and self-representation, upholding their cultural values and knowledge.

Conclusion

This CIS of the academic literature, using the Silences Framework, has identified critical silences within the literature at the interface of DFV, mothering, and an Aboriginal women's standpoint. The research gaps highlight the complexities faced by Aboriginal mothers who live with DFV. The small body of evidence that does exist has revealed the safety knowledge of Aboriginal mothers in their strategic management of safety and help-seeking, often drawn from cultural values. This paper has drawn attention to key learnings that should be noted by policymakers, researchers, and practitioners across the many human services systems that DFV survivors encounter. The implications for social work and the systems within which social workers operate are particularly relevant. These relate to fundamental conceptualizations of the discipline's social justice and equity foundation and how they apply to: Aboriginal communities; social work practice in the context of Aboriginal mother/child relations, particularly in relation to the DFV/child protection intersection; the leadership social work can offer in influencing systems change; the research, policy, and practice-based advocacy that social workers can foster; and the engagement of social work with processes of decolonization and reconciliation.

The limitations of this paper rest upon the fact that it is difficult to develop a comprehensive analysis with so few papers. More research is needed that privileges the marginalized voices of Aboriginal women to advocate for system change. Specifically, further DFV-focused research is required in the following areas of: Aboriginal mothering; systems navigation and change; the efficacy of holistic family services; and Aboriginal child outcomes. This research is required to challenge the systemic silence that compromises Aboriginal women's safety.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Shawana Andrews

Cathy Humphreys

Author Biographies

Shawana Andrews is a Trawlwoolway Aboriginal woman. She is Associate Director of the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Work at the University of Melbourne. Shawana is a social work and public health researcher in areas of Aboriginal mothering practices and family violence, Aboriginal feminisms and gendered knowledges, and cultural practice-based methodologies.

Associate Professor Bridget Hamilton is Director of the Centre for Psychiatric Nursing. She leads a team of clinical nurse academics and consumer academics to build up the skills and contribution of mental health nurses in Victoria, for the benefit of people receiving mental healthcare. Bridget is a clinical academic, a registered nurse with 30 year career as a mental health specialist clinician, manager, educator and researcher in public sector services. Her program of translational research in acute, emergency and community mental health settings aims to implement and sustain evidence based interventions.

Cathy Humphreys is Professor of Social Work at University of Melbourne and leads a large team of researchers. She is co-chair of the Melbourne Research Alliance to End Violence Against Women and their Children (MAEVE) and a Co-director and chief investigator of the Safer Families NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence. Cathy’s research focuses on domestic and family violence (DFV) and child abuse with a strong background in practice research. Cathy has a long term interest in the impact of DFV on mothering and ensuring that the voices and experiences of children are visible and they are acknowledged as primary victims of DFV.

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A Global Silence: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis of Aboriginal Mothering Through Domestic and Family Violence

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Background

Method

A Silences Framework

Search Strategy

Selection Criteria

Data Extraction

Results

Synthetic Constructs

Service systems

Mothering identities and relationships

Complexities of safety

Discussion

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iDs

Author Biographies

References