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‘Constant Violence from Everywhere’: Psychodynamics of Power and Abuse Amongst Rural and Small-Town Youth

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Abstract

Informed by psychosocial theoretical constructs, this study explores dynamic processes that underlie behaviors of what we call youth relational violence. The paper challenges earlier studies about teen dating violence that use models of adult domestic violence to inform the work, and posits, instead, that youth relational violence is not domestic, occurs beyond the scope of committed partnerships, and varies broadly in the degree and qualities of the relational dyads in which it occurs. Data from participants in targeted and random focus groups (n = 84) consider the social and economic context of a rural and small-town region. The study makes no gender assumptions about abusive teen relationships, nor does it limit data sources and analyses to heterosexual dyads. It conceptualizes elements of power and attachment, and operationalizes them into analyzable data forms, toward the development of a theoretical model that will inform research and practice about violence between teens in relational dyads. Whereas research in the last decade has focused principally on prevalence and evaluation, this paper introduces an exploration of dynamic processes that underlie power, tolerance of abuse, vulnerability to perpetration and victimization, and degree of attachment as it relates to abuse and power dynamics.

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Acknowledgments

The project described was supported by the National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant UL1TR000161. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sociology and Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 285 Old Westport Road, Dartmouth, MA, 02747, USA

    Robin A. Robinson

  2. School of Law, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Robin A. Robinson

  3. Sociology and Anthropology, St. John’s University, Queens, NY, USA

    Judith A. Ryder

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  1. Robin A. Robinson
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Correspondence to Robin A. Robinson.

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Robinson, R.A., Ryder, J.A. ‘Constant Violence from Everywhere’: Psychodynamics of Power and Abuse Amongst Rural and Small-Town Youth. Crit Crim 22, 545–560 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-014-9254-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-014-9254-3

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