Julia Kowalski, "Counseling Women: Kinship Against Violence in India" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)

New Books in Sociology · Mar 22, 2023 · 35m

Women’s rights activists around the world have commonly understood gendered violence as the product of so-called traditional family structures, from which women must be liberated. Counseling Women: Kinship Against Violence in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022) contends that this perspective overlooks the social and cultural contexts in which women understand and navigate their relationships with kin. This book follows frontline workers in India, called family counselors, as they support women who have experienced violence at home in the context of complex shifting legal and familial systems…