"Gaza Love.... The Beating is What They Prefer": The Correlative Relationship Between Practices of IPV in Nima, Ghana, and the Construction of Gender

Abstract

This study attempts to examine, based on the accounts of men, the relationship between their understanding and performativity of gender, particularly masculinity, and the prevalence of IPV in Nima, a boisterous suburb in the heart of Accra, Ghana. The study utilizes Judith Butler’s “Gender as Performativity” theory as well as Lori Heise’s integrated, ecological framework that presents violence as a multilayered phenomenon involving an interaction between personal history, situational, and socio-cultural factors to understand the etiology and prevalence of IPV in this community. In carrying out this study, I conducted in-depth interviews with respondents between the ages of 25 and 40 living in different neighborhoods of Nima. Also, in order to provide a distinct sense of how violence is framed and negotiated by a survivor of IPV in this community, I interviewed a young woman who had recently been battered by her boyfriend.