Discourse After a Batterer Intervention Program: A Qualitative Analysis of “Letters From the Future”
editThis exploratory study employs discourse and narrative analysis to assess men’s (n = 45) responses to a writing assignment completed at the end of a solution-focused voluntary batterer intervention program. The study finds that the men primarily use the assignment to reassure themselves of their future success, defined through traditionally male paradigms. The narrative analysis then divides the letters according to type: Participants (22.7%) use a “transformative” discourse of behavior change and intimate partner violence (IPV)-sustaining discourse (18.2%), but the plurality (38.6%) use both simultaneously. The ideological conflict demonstrated in these responses highlights how IPV-sustaining discourse is embedded within broader sociocultural discursive structures. Keywords intimate partner violence, batterer intervention, men’s narratives The present study uses a qualitative content analysis (based on theories of narrative discourse) to interpret a capstone writing assignment by men who have participated in a voluntary diversion solution-focused batterer intervention program (BIP). Our goal is to better understand how these men use the assignment to present their understanding of their lives, and how that presentation rejects or colludes with common discur-sive maneuvers that sustain intimate partner violence (IPV) in Anglophone cultures.