The influence of gender, racial, social, and economic inequalities on the production of and responses to intimate partner violence in the post-migration context

This qualitative descriptive study explored the research question, "What is the relationship between gender roles, power relations, and social supports in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the Sri Lankan Tamil community of Toronto?";In-depth individual interviews with 16 Tamil community leaders, 6 focus groups (3 with women and 3 with men) in the Tamil community in the Greater Toronto Area, and individual interviews with 6 women who had experienced IPV and who had left their abusive husbands, were conducted. Data generation, analysis, and interpretation were carried out concurrently.;The findings indicated that the production of IPV is shaped by a set of complex and intersecting factors involving race, gender, and class at the micro, meso, and macro levels of society. These factors are addressed under the broad themes of: (a) experience of diverse forms of violence during displacement and border-crossing; (b) change in social network to one based on patrilocality; and (c) oppressive gender and race relations that prevent Tamil women from achieving equality at home, within the Tamil community, or in Canadian society at large.;The study is one of the first Canadian nursing studies on the topic of IPV in the post-migration context. Implications of the findings for nursing research, theory, and practice are outlined.;The literature reviewed highlighted the relevance of individual factors (based on biological and psychological explanations) and the larger systemic level factors (based on various sociological and feminist perspectives) in explicating the production of IPV. Despite the important gains we have achieved with the use of such theories, one key limitation---a lack of attention to women's experiences at multiple sites of oppression in the post-migration context---was noted. In order to address such a gap, a postcolonial feminist theoretical perspective in combination with an ecosystemic framework was used to guide this study.