1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910480678903321

Autore

Mulla Sameena

Titolo

The Violence of Care : Rape Victims, Forensic Nurses, and Sexual Assault Intervention / / Sameena Mulla

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, NY : , : New York University Press, , [2014]

©2014

ISBN

9781479878901

1479878901

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (viii, 277 pages)

Disciplina

362.883

Soggetti

Forensic nursing - United States

Rape victims - Services for - United States - Psychological aspects

Rape victims - Medical examinations - United States

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Sexual Violence in the City -- 1. “The Hand of God” -- 2. Making Time -- 3. On Truth and Disgust -- 4 Re/production -- 5. Facing Victims -- 6. Documentary Agency -- 7. There Is No Place Like Home -- 8. Patient and Victim Compliance -- Conclusion. “We’re Not There for the Victim” -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author

Sommario/riassunto

Winner, 2017 Margaret Mead Award presented by the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology Honorable Mention, 2015 Eileen Basker Memorial Prize presented by the Society for Medical Anthropology Every year in the U.S., thousands of women and hundreds of men participate in sexual assault forensic examinations. Drawing on four years of participatory research in a Baltimore emergency room, Sameena Mulla reveals the realities of sexual assault response in the forensic age. Taking an approach developed at the intersection of medical and legal anthropology, she analyzes the ways in which nurses work to collect and preserve evidence while addressing the needs of sexual assault victims as patients. Mulla argues that blending the work of care and forensic



investigation into a single intervention shapes how victims of violence understand their own suffering, recovery, and access to justice—in short, what it means to be a “victim”. As nurses race the clock to preserve biological evidence, institutional practices, technologies, and even state requirements for documentation undermine the way in which they are able to offer psychological and physical care. Yet most of the evidence they collect never reaches the courtroom and does little to increase the number of guilty verdicts. Mulla illustrates the violence of care with painstaking detail, illuminating why victims continue to experience what many call “secondary rape” during forensic intervention, even as forensic nursing is increasingly professionalized. Revictimization can occur even at the hands of conscientious nurses, simply because they are governed by institutional requirements that shape their practices.The Violence of Care challenges the uncritical adoption of forensic practice in sexual assault intervention and post-rape care, showing how forensic intervention profoundly impacts the experiences of violence, justice, healing and recovery for victims of rape and sexual assault.