I handlingsplanens diskursiva spår
En studie av diskurser på nationell, regional och lokal nivå om våld i nära relationer
The aim of this study was to analyze how discourses about domestic violence emerges in policy and practice, and to investigate how those discourses may change from a structural, political level to a local, practical level. The research questions focused how the problem of domestic violence is formulated at national and local level, scrutinizing the different discourses framing and reproducing the causes and solutions of the problem, and also to deduce how different context affects formulations. The empirical material consists of policy plans and interviews with social workers. The findings indicates that the issue of domestic violence is articulated differently on different levels. In action plans on the national level, the domestic violence is formulated within a structural discourse, being a problem on a (gender-) political level, whereas professional social workers recognizes domestic violence as a personal problem within an individual oriented discourse. On the local level, domestic violence is viewed as something separated from the gender influenced discourse identified on the structural level. The discourses change in relation to the surrounding contexts and depend on both time and space. Unanimously domestic violence is addressed as a serious problem that should be managed with individual efforts. Conflicting discourses lead to incomprehension between theory and practice, and victims of violence are treated with other measures than the ones that the government out mapped.