This thesis is a research paper on the causes of domestic violence in Luxembourg. The seriousness of domestic violence, a violence that happens behind four walls, in a place that is supposed to be one’s safe haven, requires a correct understanding of its roots in order to address it appropriately.
With rather stabilising numbers in what concerns its prevalence in recent years and with a lack of academic research contributions in the specific context of Luxembourg, the aim of this paper is to provide a thorough understanding of the causal processes of domestic violence in Luxembourg.
In an attempt to unveil specific causes of domestic violence, this thesis adopts the methodology of an explicative case study, a methodology that allows the author to identify causal processes of the phenomenon of domestic violence within the real-word context of Luxembourg. The chosen data supporting this research is a combination of quantitative and qualitative material: statistics provide an overview and background knowledge on the prevalence and demographic characteristics of domestic violence in Luxembourg and semi-structured interviews with professionals working in the field were held in order to provide in-depth insights for studying its causes. These different professionals provided significant observations from different perspectives ensuring an adequate representativity of Luxembourg’s scenario. The case study is guided by a theoretical framework that combines Control Balance Theory, which focuses on control asymmetry, and Feminist Theory, which focuses on gender inequality as the explicative factors of domestic violence.
With this methodology and theoretical framework in place, the analysis is divided into two main parts according to the theory in use. The findings gathered through the interviews allowed the author to identify control as an inherent cause of domestic violence which in some cases is reinforced by gender dynamics. The author was able to single out specific settings of power relationships and methods of control as well as the extent to which gender plays a role in those different settings, which are labelled as intimate terrorism and reversed intimate terrorism.
In studying its causes in Luxembourg, this thesis is an academic contribution to the study of domestic violence as it unmasks unexplored settings of control and power relationships and unexplored gender dynamics which sow the seeds of domestic violence.