Speakers' Abstracts and Biographies

Ana Borges Jelinic

“In the middle… waiting for a future” – time and waiting in partner migration and family violence in Australia

This presentation discusses  the experience of prolonged temporariness of sponsored women in Australia that often have added barriers to permanency in the country, even though this is a priority category for processing in other migrant-seeking countries. 'Sponsored women'are defined here as migrant women who were sponsored by their partners in a partner visa application and who separated due to domestic and family violence (DFV). Twenty sponsored women in different stages of the immigration process, were interviewed twice, with the second interview 9-12 months after the first one. The data was analysed using the Listening Guide, analytical tool based on Carol Gilligan's work. On the second interview sponsored women focused their attention on their experiences with the department of immigration, now known as Home Affairs, with special concern for the prolonged waiting in their visa processes. The waiting and prolonged temporariness shape women's experiences of migration and relationship with the country, and in the case of this cohort, their experience of safety, mental health and well being.

Ana Borges Jelinic is a Brazilian-Australian research-practitioner working mainly in migration and violence against women. She graduated in Psychology with Honours at PUC-SP, Brazil. She holds post-graduation qualifications from Griffith University and the University of Queensland (UQ), including her PhD awarded in 2020. She received the Andrew Little Award (2020) for teaching excellence.

Samantha O’Donnell

Punishable victims: broadening understandings of punitiveness to capture women's experiences of family violence and precarity

The impact of immigration detention on women has garnered increasing attention. Drawing on interviews with twelve practitioners and one woman with lived experience, I broaden this exploration and examine the impact of 'bordered penality'on victim-survivors of family violence with precarious statuses. I focus on five harms: the gendered impact of immigration detention, how punishment is felt in detention, the chilling effect of detention and deportation, the loss of support structures and women as punishable victims. In this paper I will argue that bordered penal processes in Australia harm women primarily and secondarily. Furthermore, these harms are experienced punitively. Placing both primary and secondary harms within a punitive frame challenges our understandings of 'who'is subjected to punishment.

Samantha O’Donnell is a PhD Candidate in Criminology at the University of Melbourne. She is also a research assistant at RMIT. Her PhD research explores precarity, family violence and immigration law and policy in Australia. Samantha is also a qualified solicitor. Her approach to research is informed by her experience practising as a lawyer across the government and community legal sectors.

Sana Ashraf

Silence behind the locked doors: a qualitative study on domestic violence experiences of Pakistani immigrant women in Australia

Domestic violence is a widespread problem whose forms and intensity vary across contexts. For example, in Australia domestic violence commonly occurs between two intimate partners, while in Pakistan it can be perpetrated by any member of the household. Literature on domestic violence reveals its multifaceted impacts on the lives of immigrant women who also face multiple challenges of displacement and integration at the destination. In this study, I utilise an intersectional framework to examine the interplay of gender identity, patriarchal norms and migration in the domestic violence experiences of immigrant women. Drawing from the case study of Australian Pakistani immigrant women, my study will explore how women rationalise formal and informal coping mechanisms against violence after migrating to Australia and the social changes they contribute to in these processes. It will examine the various ways women exert their agency in the face of violence and the gendered subjectivities underpinning them. This study aims to triangulate perspectives of both men and women on the issue of domestic violence through the lens of precarity of migration. To do so, I will collect my data through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and online participant observation and use thematic analysis to interpret my findings.

Sana Ashraf is a PhD candidate at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne. She holds an MA in Social Research Methods, from the University of Leeds, UK and an MPhil. in Sociology from the University of the Punjab, Pakistan. Her research interests include domestic violence, women empowerment and migration.

Eyram Ivy Sedzro

Weighing the risk: risk perception of Ghanaian female migrants to the Gulf states

Migration has historically served as a strategy for survival and social mobility, particularly for women seeking to enhance their agency. The phenomenon of women's migration more recently has been influenced by the imperative of social advancement, yet it is not without the specific risks that are inherent to female migrants. Migration of women in Ghana is predominantly from rural to urban areas and subsequently to the Gulf countries as demand for female labour migrants increases. The increase in the migration of women as either regular or irregular labour migrants has increased the risk of exploitation, abuse, and extreme forms of violence at points of departure, transit, and destination. The objective of this study is to therefore examine the ways in which women conceptualise the risk associated with this  form of migration, within their local context. The study employs an ethnographic method based on semi structured interviews aand athematic analysis in examining the conceptualisation of risk information and experiences by women. It applies the principle of narrative ethnography, allowing participants an opportunity to speak about themselves and their experiences of migration as potential, current migrants, and returnees. The study suggests that the complex interplay between cultural identity and social affiliations is a crucial factor in influencing women's risk perceptions.

Eyram Ivy Sedzro became interested in international development after growing up in different regions of Ghana and observing how development solutions can practically improve the lives of people affected by poverty. Having worked and studied on four different continents, Eyram has developed a deep appreciation for diverse cultures and a nuanced global perspective. Her research endeavours to examine the risk perception of Ghanaian female labour migrants to the Gulf countries.

Saltanat Kamenova

Refugee women entrepreneurs: unpacking discourse of othering and subordination

This paper will discuss and advance existing debate on the discriminatory, ethnocentrically and gender biased entrepreneurship discourse, which places refugee women entrepreneurs as “others”. Comparing them to the white male archetype of ideal entrepreneur, it reproduces refugee women entrepreneurs as secondary or ‘something else’ (Ahl 2004; Bruni, Gherardi, and Poggio 2014; Marlow 2020). In doing so it fails to uncover the voices and experiences of refugee women entrepreneurs while silencing and neglecting the structures of gender, refugee status, and ethnicity (Ogbor 2000). At the same time categorization of refugee women entrepreneurs as “others” within masculine and westernized paradigm, results in discriminatory practices expressed by decision-makers and practitioners. Following postfeminist and critical theory, this paper will develop conceptual arguments challenging discriminatory discourse of entrepreneurship, which disadvantage refugee women entrepreneurs. In doing so author will provide a scoping review of research that engage with the experiences of refugee women entrepreneurs with a particular focus on the intersections of gender, refugee status and entrepreneurship.

Saltanat Kamenova is a research specialist with more than 10 years of experience in think tanks and public agencies. Currently Saltanat is working on a research project which is focused on the experiences of refugee women doing business in Australia. Through this project, Saltanat debates discriminatory discourse around refugee women entrepreneurs with a specific focus on the intersectionality of gender, refugee status and entrepreneurship. Saltanat has an MA in Social Policy from the University of York, England.