ABSTRACT
Within the domestic violence scholarship from Ethiopia intimate partner violence has been typically described through the Gender-based Violence aetiology and has been typologised in physical, psychological, sexual, emotional and economic categories. These conceptualisations are mostly assumed or suggested by researchers, and much less attention has been given to the terminologies and definitions of research participants as spoken in the original languages. Some exceptional studies that explored the research participants’ own conceptualisations found both variability in opinions and a grey area in people’s understandings of abusive behaviour, evidencing the limitations of generic definitions and classifications. This chapter presents the challenges that were encountered in researching conjugal abuse in the rural surroundings and the city of Aksum due to suspending all a priori terminologies or typologies. The aim of this analysis is to demonstrate the importance of terminological choices and communicational strategies in the research process, especially when study topics are sensitive. The chapter also provides a detailed presentation of local understandings, realities and attitudes of conjugal abuse as they emanated from the research sites in reference to local terminology. Although the research participants’ understandings varied, the analysis focuses on the recurrent themes of conjugal conflict, gender asymmetries, physical violence and sexual coercion and presents the attitudes that the research participants expressed toward the different types of abusive behaviour and situations that they named.
