ABSTRACT
This chapter lays the groundwork for our analysis of temporary migration and domestic and family violence (DFV). While research and debates around DFV tend to centre on the relationship context, in this volume, we seek to go further by focusing on the interplay of gendered power dynamics that take place within a relationship and how this is influenced by the power of the state via the migration regime. To do so, we mobilise analytical frameworks across critical scholarship on borders, migration studies and criminology that interrogate the understanding of and response to gendered violence, including but not limited to DFV, and examine the border apparatus, which includes the migration system. Our aim in this chapter is to examine some of the key contributions across these areas of scholarship and identify the value in bringing these analytical and conceptual considerations together. The chapter is structured around four interrelated concepts that weave through our analysis in this book: temporariness, citizenship, suspicion and accountability. Drawing from this, we suggest that foregrounding temporariness in our analysis of DFV is beneficial as it enables us to recognise it as a structural location through which harm and violence are both produced and sustained. We also argue that this offers a new methodological contribution as it brings to the fore the suite of violent practices experienced by women that tend to be siloed and silenced by both the state and perpetrators of DFV.
