Regional Service Providers' Understandings Of Rurality and Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is more prevalent and chronic in rural areas in Canada and internationally. Social attitudes and understandings of IPV shape the extent to which communities tolerate violence, and the opportunities that perpetrators and victims have to end violence. This article examines service providers' understandings of rural attitudes toward IPV drawing on semi-structured interviews with expert service providers (N=15) in two Canadian rural regional service centres, Brandon, Manitoba and Sydney, Nova Scotia. The similarities among the case studies illustrate how cultural variations of traditional gender norms and family norms embedded in rural place significantly influence attitudes towards IPV through othering and the minimization and marginalization of experiences of IPV. This research is framed in a radical feminist and anti-essentialist conceptualization, which highlights how patriarchal systems inform attitudes and subsequently the rates and maintenance of IPV. The article concludes with a discussion of service provider recommendations and their implications for rural development.