Women-vulnerable, women-victims. Exploring critical perspectives on categorizations and institutional practices in situations of patriarchal violence and migration

Abstract

This paper describes a process of articulation between two research contexts which, at first glance, seem distant: violence against women in Argentina and migration of women in Portugal. However, our research indicates that it is possible to identify similar mechanisms of categorization, control and subalternization in both theoretical and institutional approaches given to women transiting these processes. We intend to address these issues from a critical review of the institutionally promoted profiles of woman victim and vulnerable migrant, shedding lighton the mechanisms of representation and heteronomy of women, reflecting on the type of citizenship that are promoted in this context. We problematize the agglomeration of a variety of women with different subjective experiences in essentializing profiles, weunderline the multiple impacts of this categorization, in the construction and on institutional practices. Furthermore, we argue that an analysis of institutional mechanisms involved, resuming contributions of critical and feminist epistemologies, can contribute to a broader reflection on gender and citizenship, and uncover mechanisms of (re) production of social inequalities. In this contribution we intend to share the process of our on-going articulation, aiming at promoting a debate on the impact of the construction and implementation of institutional categories.