Responses to youth intimate partner violence: the meaning of youth-specific factors and interconnections with resilience

Abstract

Taking its starting point in a mixed methods study on Dating Violence/Youth Intimate Partner Violence (youth IPV), this article emphasizes the social sphere of youth IPV and contributes to a focus shift from consequences and risks to responses, resilience, and resistance. It asks how IPV-exposed youth describe their responses and those of their social networks to violence, and how these responses might be interconnected with resilience. By exploring the concepts of ‘resistance’ and ‘paradoxical resilience’, youth responses in the context of an abusive relationship are highlighted. The empirical data comes from 18 in-depth, ‘teller focused’ interviews with victimized youth (aged 17–23) in Sweden. A theoretical thematic analysis of the interviews surfaced responses from three different types of actors, all described from the youth perspective. Responses are discussed from the point of view that they can promote resilience, but also enable abuse to continue. Overall, the data show youth-specific factors that have meaningful bearing on responses as well as resilience. The article also proposes that responses should be an omnipresent concern for practitioners working with these young people and for the adults involved in their lives.