The four monographs reviewed here signal both a critical shift and the value of diversity in domestic violence studies. The authors of the works consider the meaning and policing of, as well as resistance to, domestic violence within specific historical and cultural contexts, of rurality, of immigration, and of the cultural and political economy of colonialism. These ethnographic and historical, works document women’s experiences of battering and how the state distinguishes between acceptable and unacceptable levels of violence within marriage.
