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This paper addresses how domestic violence services to women of African, African-Caribbean, South Asian, Jewish and Irish backgrounds are structured by assumptions about ‘culture’ which produce barriers to the delivery of domestic violence services. Phoenix’s (1987, ‘Theories of Gender and Black Families’, pp. 50-61 in G. Weiner and M. Arnot (eds) Gender Under Scrutiny. London: Hutchinson) discussion of the representation of black women is applied more generally to analyse how discourses of gender and racialization function within accounts of domestic violence service provision. Discourses of both cultural specificity and generality/commonality are shown to intersect to effectively exclude minority ethnic women from such services. Domestic violence emerges as something that can be overlooked or even excused for ‘cultural reasons’, as a homogenized absence; or alternatively as a pathologized presence, producing heightened visibility of minoritized women both within and outside their communities - since domestic violence brings them and their communities under particular scrutiny. Such configurations also inform discourses of service provision to minoritized women. Finally key implications are identified for service design, delivery and development, including the need for both culturally specific and mainstream provision around domestic violence, and the need to challenge notions of ‘cultural privacy’ and ‘race anxiety’ in work with minoritized communities.

This paper considers our experience within a group researching domestic violence in minoritised groups and the implications for counselling practice. Issues of race, gender and power were significant within the research team. These issues are intrinsic to minoritised women's experiences of service responses and are also a powerful, yet often unexplored, dynamic in counselling practice. We reflect on issues of ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’ in terms of the research process and findings, and the impact and influence of these power roles on counselling practice. We acknowledge that it is only by retrospectively engaging with each other and our differences that we have been able to explore our parallel processes and consider their implications for counselling practice.

In this article we draw on feminist and psychodynamic theory to discuss processes of researching service provision for minoritised women escaping domestic violence. Our aim is to take seriously the ways particular contexts, in this case as produced by the process of researching this topic, elicit specific responses. In particular we offer some conceptual tools for analysing the emotions generated in these geographies. Taking the 'space' of the research team as our focus, we analyse how culturally defined meanings of 'home', community and refuge that were the focus of our research topic also functioned as a lens through which tensions and dynamics within the project team could be understood. Just as secrecy, silence and shame figured in our participants' accounts, so they circulated between the team. Drawing on the motifs of the intersection of 'space' and 'place' (as they occur within discourses and practices around domestic violence and minoritisation) as well as the psychodynamic notions of 'mirroring' and 'parallel process', we consider the extent to which the combined racialised, gendered and institutional relationships structuring the research team constituted it as a 'non-place'. This is because it was a space produced by the research process which, other than this, had no acknowledged tradition of history or memory to anchor it. We discuss how this space functioned paradoxically to foster creativity and innovation in generating discourses and practices working across difference, as well as inevitably at times recapitulating prevailing power (including racialised) relationships. We end by evaluating the usefulness of such concepts for wider analyses of intercultural and antiracist feminist practice.

This paper draws on a ten month British study completed in April 2001 investigating service responses to women of South Asian background who had attempted suicide or who self-harmed. The scope of the study is briefly outlined and an analysis of perspectives documented in the study is presented, drawing on research interviews with 18 staff from a variety of health and social care disciplines and with seven survivors of attempted suicide/self-harm. The implications of this analysis for improving practice are considered. Attitudes surrounding attempted suicide and self-harm are discussed. The issue of ‘race anxiety’ is also discussed. The factors seen by workers as contributing to South Asian women's attempted suicide are considered, with a particular focus on the difficulties caused in the delivery of services by common-sense accounts of cultural issues. Current approaches to the delivery of services to South Asian women are identified and analysed, showing how their current organisation can lead to circularity in referral systems and consequent non-intentional neglect of the needs of this client group. It is urged that proper consideration be given to the support and professional supervision of staff in this complex area of work

This paper reports on a 10 month British study completed in April 2001 investigating service responses to women of South Asian background who have attempted suicide or self-harmed within the Manchester area of the UK. After outlining the scope and design of the study, the paper focuses on the survivor perspectives documented within the study. The findings and analysis presented here aim to unpack key elements of the complex and layered dynamics at play in working with issues of attempted suicide and self-harm in South Asian women. More specifically, we explore the following five issues: factors contributing to South Asian women's attempted suicide and self-harm, the ways in which personal distress are created and perpetuated by structural inequalities, the mirroring processes between helping agencies and families, survivors' experiences of helping agencies, and survivors' ideas about what would be more supportive to them. While there are connections with white women's experiences, the specific experiences of South Asian women are highlighted in the hope that understanding of the issues they face is increased and appropriate measures taken to develop services which are both gender sensitive and anti-racist.

This article draws on an investigation of service responses to women of South Asian background who have attempted suicide or self-harm within northwest England to outline policy challenges for adequate provision to this population. This article highlights, in particular, the challenges for service managers arising from and documented within the study, outlining implications for improving policy, service commissioning and provision. We suggest that these omissions have resulted in the distress of South Asian women going unrecognized in the name of respect for cultural diversity, thereby sanctioning policies and practices that further the oppression of South Asian women. Four main issues emerging from the interviews are discussed: 1) the impact of the contract culture on the form and structure of service provision; 2) limitations of current partnership arrangements with South Asian communities; 3) practical and conceptual problems within models of both consultation and change; and, 4) key practical consequences of the covert ways in which the structure and interpretation of service responses work to treat `race' as more important than gender. In terms of specific implications, it is suggested that the current policy focus on addressing service inequalities via recruitment of South Asian workers warrants critical re-evaluation, while training and management development should take as central the intersections of `race', culture, class and gender as systemic issues to be worked with rather than marginal or optional considerations. It is argued that attending to the specific needs and conditions of South Asian women attempting suicide or self-harm by providing integrated culturally and gender-sensitive services highlights good practice for everyone.