Sofie Henze-Pedersen defends her PhD thesis at the Department of Sociology

CandidateSofie Henze-Pedersen

Sofie Henze-Pedersen

Title

After the Violence? Everyday Life and Family Relationships among Children and their Mothers at a Women’s Refuge.

Assessment Committee

  • Professor Claire Maxwell, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (chair).
  • Professor Lucas Gottzén, Stockholm University, Sweden.
  • Dr. Carolina Øverlien, Norwegian Centre for Violence Studies, Norway.

Host

Head of PhD Programme, Professor Bente Halkier.

Time and venue

Time: 16 April 2021, 1 PM
Venue: Online via Zoom. Follow this link to join the defence.

The PhD dissertation will be available via Academic Books as an e-publication. Also available for reading at the Department of Sociology, after the re-opening of the University Campus by contacting phd@soc.ku.dk.

Summary

This dissertation investigates how everyday life and family relationships are experienced and practiced by children and their mothers at a women’s refuge.

The question is addressed through an ethnographic approach consisting of extended fieldwork at a refuge in Denmark and interviews with children, exploring experiences and practices over time. Empirically, the dissertation adds to the small body of qualitative research on families at refuges and children especially. It shows that a refuge stay cannot be limited to a focus on the refuge itself, as experiences and practices are entangled with other events both inside and outside the refuge, such as navigating the new institutional setting and processes of family change.

The dissertation has also taken up the call to bring children’s actions to centre stage in research on violence in the intimate sphere. It illustrates how children navigate and negotiate everyday life and (contested) family relationships, and how this happens in interplay with adults at the refuge.

Finally, the dissertation contributes to the three theoretical frameworks that have inspired the analyses: the sociology of childhood, the sociology of families and the lived experience of violence. It does so by showing how children are both social and moral actors, the importance of situating family practices and understanding violence as context.