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MA/PhD Theses Abstracts of Current Students & Alumni |
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Francisco, Leilani V. (MA), Power through unity: An exploration of knowledge, action, and social networking among domestic violence prevention and treatment agencies in Panama, (Whiteford), 2002.
Domestic violence has only recently been brought to the international forefront as a human rights issue and has rarely ever been recognized as a public health concern. Given this lack of recognition and the astonishing prevalence of domestic violence across the globe, this problem must be recognized, better understood, and ways to combat it must be researched, developed, implemented, and supported. This study was conducted in the Republic of Panama in January of 1999. The primary objective of the study was to explore the knowledge, actions, and social networking among domestic violence prevention and treatment agencies in the Republic of Panama. It examines the operational definition of domestic violence, the risk factors and contributors, and the means of preventing and treating cases of domestic violence as defined by domestic violence agency representatives in Panama. Each of these concepts is discussed within the context of the literature on Panama and the surrounding region. The study concludes with a social network analysis of the relationships between and among these domestic violence and prevention agencies. Social network analysis data were collected at the conclusion of semi¬structured ethnographic interviews conducted with 14 domestic violence agency representatives. Network data from the 14 agencies comprising the project network were analyzed using concepts such as distance, centrality, cliques, structural equivalence, and density. The project contributes to the fields of applied anthropology and domestic violence as it is among the first in-depth studies on domestic violence agencies in Panama. It is also the first social network analysis to be conducted in Panama and the first to be conducted to better understand domestic violence anywhere in the world. The analyses revealed the expertise, advanced status, and progressive success of agencies in terms of knowledge, actions, and networking. Those working towards the prevention and treatment of domestic violence cases have managed to accomplish a great deal with very limited resources. Their successes and the need to support their continued efforts must be recognized in order to ensure the progression of human rights preservation.
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