Immigrant women, domestic and family violence and the state: A contextual global analysis of the United States and Australia

Researchers, activists, community organizations, and other stakeholders have worked across the globe to ensure that the problem of domestic and family violence remains a public issue. Using a contextual global approach, this article examines the framing of domestic and family violence in the United States and Australia, focusing on the critical issue of citizenship status. We draw attention to immigration policies and processes and the types of factors that can compound the violence women experience in their intimate lives to make them vulnerable. We focus specifically on the need to pay attention to the precarity of citizenship or visa status in both contexts over the past two decades and draw on state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of these processes. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of collaborative and interdisciplinary research for a more comprehensive contextual global understanding of domestic and family violence to enhance policies and practices for immigrant women.