Public Awareness
OPDV Bulletin: Cultural Issues and Community Coordination
By Sujata Warrier, Ph.D.
As communities across the state forge ahead with a coordinated community response to domestic violence, it is helpful to realize how cultural issues can challenge the process. Much of the work to date has focused on bringing together members of systems to improve the overall response to domestic violence. As a result, underserved communities may not be included in the process. Numerous difficulties arise in the effort to reach out to these communities and in beginning the process of coordination. However, for community coordination to work, all segments of the community must be part of the initiative.
It is necessary to examine who is un(der)represented in the current configuration of the coordination efforts and the reasons for it. Reaching out to these communities and learning about the "culture" and the issues within them is critical to effectively promoting zero tolerance, enhancing services, and ensuring that victims from these communities do not fall between the cracks. Understanding their views on domestic violence is a first step in the collaborative process for both the larger community as a whole and the smaller community within. From there, a clear strategy can be developed to address domestic violence.
In the outreach process, it is critical to move beyond common notions of culture as a stable pattern of values and beliefs to understanding culture as shared experiences that develop and evolve under changing social and political conditions. Recognizing that culture is not just about race and ethnicity but includes other differences such as level of education, primary language, religious beliefs, immigration status, geographic location, class, sexual orientation, etc. is important in understanding the contradictions present in all communities.
The ways in which such differences manifest themselves on the issue of domestic violence will vary depending upon how they intersect in a particular geographic location. While a certain community may be defined by its racial or ethnic characteristics, individuals who comprise that community may share different views. Further, two communities of the same racial or ethnic make-up in different areas of New York State may not share the same values. The response to domestic violence is shaped by many factors which may vary depending upon the intersection of race and ethnicity with other areas of difference such as class composition or disability status. A nuanced understanding of the variations within communities helps prevent the cracks through which victims fall and creates a more effective response to batterers.
When we think of culture, we often focus on the culture of the community or of a particular individual, forgetting the culture of the system and the players within. We all hold beliefs about our own culture and that of others. These beliefs affect our decisions and actions. Our uninformed perception of the values of another often impedes our understanding as to why a particular individual or community holds a specific opinion on domestic violence. This may lead us to develop ineffective strategies for dealing with domestic violence within a given community. We may be left frustrated and blame the very community we failed to understand initially or to take into consideration as we developed policy.
In bringing systems together in a coordinated community response model, the cultural beliefs of each system must be recognized and the individuals representing those systems must clarify their values to work together across differences. As much as there are variations and contradictions within a system and its players, so too are there variations and contradictions in communities. Therefore, it is essential that we identify common and differing values and beliefs at the micro-community level. Accounting for differences helps to articulate connections and relations allowing a coordinated community response to develop in its most expansive and most effective form.
While the challenges to bringing all segments of the community into the process of creating and implementing a coordinated community response to domestic violence can seem daunting at the onset, the rewards of doing so will be great and offer the only hope of a community free of domestic violence. OPDV offers training on understanding culture and working to address cultural differences. For more information, please call me at (212) 268-7017or email me at sxw08@health.state.ny.us.
