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new identifers for victims of abuse

ian kerr

canada research chair in ethics, law & technology

university of ottawa

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ann bartow

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gender discrimination

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flipped ‘im

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flip it forward

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shout outs !

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nora currie

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katie black

asiya hirji

ashley death

dina mashayekhi

jennifer barrigar

jason millar

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ID theft

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niva

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(new identities for victims of abuse)

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new identifers for victims of abuse

ian kerr

canada research chair in ethics, law & technology

university of ottawa

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assumed

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imposed

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identifiers // identities

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identifiers identities

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assumed // imposed ??

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“coercively attractive offer”

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my project

– fact finding re niva [atip, etc.]

– fact finding on Bill C-286 [leg review, atip, etc.] (subsuming niva within witness protection program)

– academic research on aspects of identity – social construction of identities [goffman to butler]– victim//survivor identity [feminist & helping professions]

– personal identity [parfit to schechtman]

– critical evaluation of niva – academic analysis of promise/peril of niva

– policy analysis of Bill C-286– academic analysis of promise/peril Bill C-286

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atip Qs

information regarding / documents outlining:

• any contracts, memoranda of agreement/understanding that women must sign to enter niva  

• specific criteria that women must meet to be eligible for niva

• obligations of all parties pursuant to niva (ie., what women must do to maintain placement in the program; what services the government promises to provide to women enrolled in the program)

• how niva enforces contracts, memoranda of agreement/understanding (ie., repercussions for noncompliance)

• oversight of the program (ie., who has authority and who monitors program efficacy)

• services provided for by niva

• statistics associated with niva [including (i) how many people tried to access the program, (ii) how many were denied, (iii) how many people left niva, (iv) how many were terminated from niva, (v) how many have maintained new identities, (vi) feedback from participants]

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niva’s (faustian) bargain

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stuff about niva …

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identifiers & informational privacy

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bill c-286

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• wppa is known and understood

• program formalized, with mandate and structure

• some of niva client survey concerns addressed

• no funding cap• diminished standard for

admission to program (reasonable

belief that life is in danger) • no mandatory identity change

(can used to relocate a person)

• potential for counselling• potential for cross-

jurisdictional moves

• ties participant to criminal regime

• referral mechanisms to program under more narrow under wppa than niva

• rcmp administration raises trust issues

• vague access criteria (belief on

reasonable grounds that life is in danger ) • current language not inclusive

of children • rcmp commissioner has

discretion to refuse access for financial reasons

• possible criminal sanctions for program violations

pros cons

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the future of niva?

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academic literatures

• social construction of identities [goffman to butler]

• victim//survivor identity [feminist & helping professions]

• personal identity [philosophers from parfit to schechtman]

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academic literatures

• social construction of identities [goffman to butler]

• victim//survivor identity [feminist & helping professions]

• personal identity [philosophers from parfit to schechtman]

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1.

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abused woman as victim

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‘victimization’ is political. power dictates who victimizes and who gets victimized, and power dictates what will be viewed as victimization. a person recognized, legitimated, as a victim is recognized as someone who has received a wrong, who has been treated unfairly and unjustly.

. . . .despite its ‘negative social value’ and the ‘obligations’ of the victim role, its benefits include “the right to claim assistance, sympathy, temporary relief from other role responsibilities, legal recourse, and other similar advantages.

martha burt & rhoda estep (1981) “who is a victim? definitional problems in sexual

victimization”

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‘victimization’ as a purposive tool of

social construction by grassroots feminists

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pathologizing the victim

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feminism lost its power to suggest interpretations of abuse to the … public almost as soon as the media seized on victimization of women and girls as a popular subject. the loss of political movement that saw abuse as primarily a gender issue became a gain for the public health and mental health professions.

sharon lamb (1999)“constructing the victim: popular

images and lasting labels”

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• the convincing victim:

– is eternally suffering- depression; suicidal tendencies; anxiety; phobias;

addiction; dissociative identity disorder; sexual dysfunction, etc.

– is deviant– is passive– is helpless– is powerless– is dependent– is ashamed – lacks agency

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a stigmatized individual is “reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one.”

erving goffman (1963)

stigma: notes on the management of

spoiled identity

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‘victimization’ began to lose its feminist instrumentality

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in creating new definitions we always risk incorporating the rigidity of the victim is a practice I call victimism… [which] creates a framework for others to know her not as a person but as a victim, someone to whom violence was done.

. . . . victimism is an objectification which establishes new standards for defining experience; those standards dismay any question of will, and deny that the woman even while enduring sexual violence is a living, growing, interactive person.

kathleen barry (1979)female sexual slavery

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there are many ways to victimize people. one way is to convince them that they are victims”

karen hwang (1997)

from utne reader

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feminist research increasingly seeks to go beyond giving women voice and reporting on women’s experiences, to offer analyses and critiques that help make sense of women’s experiences as they are shaped and constrained by power relations in social

contexts. nicola garvey (1999)“ ‘I wasn’t raped but…’ revisiting

definitional problems in sexual victimization”

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jane doe

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resistant to the ‘victim’ label

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post structural feminism

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language and discourse are often constitutive of meaning

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(niva)?

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2.

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abused woman as survivor

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the alternative characterization of battered women is that they are active survivors rather than helpless victims … battered women remain in abusive situations not because they have been passive but because they have tried to escape with no avail. we offer, therefore, a survivor hypothesis that contradicts learned helplessness. battered women increase their helpseeking in the face of increased violence, rather than decrease helpseeking as learned helplessness.

. . . .their effort to survive transcends even fearsome danger, depression or guilt, and economic constraints. it supercedes the “giving up and giving in” which occurs according to learned helplessness. in an effort to survive, battered women are, in fact, heroically assertive and persistent.

edward gandolf & ellen fisher (1988)battered women as survivors

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rather than a loss of self, this study found that passivity is an active strategy of survival… although they appear to acquiesce to the abusers’ controls and definitions, the women continues to harbor alternative interpretations. they survived life-threatening experiences by developing adaptive strategies of resistance and strength.

laura lempert (1996)“women’s strategies for survival: developing agency in abusive relationships”

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however …

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but what are the consequences for mobilization and public policy of emphasizing, alternatively, victims’ strength and agency? ‘survivor’ typifications, as they become increasingly popular, confer a kind of self-sufficiency on those so labeled that might dissuade rather than encourage assistance. if a victim is no longer perceived as helpless, will help still be forthcoming? it is possible that the collective identity ‘repair work’ I have described, while it reframes battered women in ways that are non-stigmatizing and consonant with the ideology of individual responsibility, nonetheless has latent consequences ... to cast victims as agents can be interpreted as minimizing the effects of the forces arrayed against them.

jennifer dunn (2005)“‘victims’ and ‘survivors’: emerging

vocabularies for battered women who stay”

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victim // survivor

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Ф

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personal identity

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victimization = identity as difference

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identity as sameness

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persistence over time

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survivor/ship

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ship of theseus

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the ship wherein thesues and the youth of athens returned from crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the athenians down even to the time of demetrius phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other

contending that it was not the same. plutarch

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material persistence

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personal identity?

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Q — what is necessary and sufficient for a past or future being to be you?

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– psychological approachJohnston (1987), Garrett (1998), Hudson (2001), Lewis (1976), Nagel (1986, 40), Noonan (2003), Nozick (1981), Parfit (1971; 1984, 207), Perry (1972), Shoemaker (1970; 1984, 90; 1997; 1999), and Unger (1990, ch. 5; 2000)

– somatic approachAyers (1990: 278–292), Carter (1989), Mackie (1999), Olson (1997), van Inwagen (1990), and Williams (1956–7, 1970)

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psychological approach• john locke – unity of consciousness (the prince and the cobbler)

• derek parfit – against unity of consciousness (fission)

– parfit’s Q: what matters in ‘survival’ ?• not identity• relation-R (a psychological connection: norma jean–marilyn)

• john perry: unity in projects and commitments

• christine korsgaard: unity in agency

• carole rovane unity of agency is practical not metaphysical

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a psychological connection [relation-R] exists when a psychological state at one time is causally related in an appropriate way to a psychological state at an earlier time. for instance, if marilyn remembers something because norma jean experienced it, if marilyn does something because norma jean intended it, if marilyn believes something because norma jean was taught it, then marilyn and norma jean are psychologically connected…if there are many such connections then

marilyn is psychologically continuous with norma jean. derek parfit (1971)“personal identity”

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psychological approach• john locke – unity of consciousness (the prince and the cobbler)

• derek parfit – against unity of consciousness (fission)

– parfit’s Q: what matters in ‘survival’ ?• not identity• relation-R (a psychological connection: norma jean–marilyn)

• john perry: unity in projects and commitments

• christine korsgaard: unity in agency

• carole rovane unity of agency is practical not metaphysical

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• “we regard ourselves as agents, as the thinkers of our thoughts and the originators of our actions”

• “as agents, we view ourselves as free and responsible, as the authors of our actions and the leaders of our lives”

• “from the practical point of view, actions and choices must be viewed as having agents and choosers

• “from the practical point of view, our relationship to our actions and choices is essentially authorial: from it, we view them as our own”

• THUS … “ ‘what matters’ … is the view of myself as agent, as [the] one who chooses and lives [this] particular life”

christine korsgaard (1989)

“personal identity and the unity of agency: a kantian reply to parfit”

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rupture of agency = harm to (death of) person

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(rupture in ability to carry out commitments)

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applying ‘survivorship’ criteria …

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do survivors of abuse survive niva?

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p p* p** |---^---------^--|---------^---|

niva

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Ф provides framework for articulating harms to persons

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Δ identifiers unity-of-agency Δ identity

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preliminary conclusions

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sceptical …

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niva ≠ ‘fresh start’ (tabula rosa)

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niva ≠ informational privacy

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2Qs?

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1. does niva or victimism?

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2. does niva or unity-of-agency?

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new identifers for victims of abuse

ian kerr

canada research chair in ethics, law & technology

university of ottawa