Against Domestic Violence (Topic: Conflict resolution)

The Design Project was begun with the brainstorming. Because the title of the project is about conflict resolution. Firstly, in my research period, it is important to clarify the meaning of conflict. The definition of conflict from World English Dictionary is that “psychology,  opposition between two simultaneous but incompatible wishes or drives, sometimes leading to a state of emotional tension and thought to be responsible for neuroses”(2011). It is to say, it needs two opposite participants with two opposite opinions. It is easy to find that human being would be the one who easily get into such a conflict situation. Therefor, the brainstorming starts from different relationship of people’s. It takes five groupes of key words to spread the thinking of the confliction in different relations among us as follows: People VS People, Family members and domestic violence,  Husband and Wife, Parents to Children and the Old people. 

After the brainstorming, the project continus to the next step, research. According to the research subject, the searching reached to the United Nations Children's Fund at the beginning. However, it is too big to study deep and it is not easy to contact. Then it found the local institution called Standing Together Against Domestic Violence. Established in 1998, Standing Together Against Domestic Violence (Standing Together) coordinates the ground-breaking multi-agency response to the crime of domestic violence. Because it is a local institution in a clear response area, It is believed that it would be more easier to contact them and get details of information. Since the researcher got in touch with the institution, it is so lucky to have a chance to interview them by emailing. 

During the interview,  a few questions were asked in order to get a whole picture of the reality in  domestic violence subject, and also to know about the specific details in cases. The questions had been asked as followed:

1. In your acknowledge, do you think that the situation of domestic violence is serious now? Could you please describe how serious it is?
2. By the cases study, do you know which types of domestic violence happen most frequently or more general?
3. Is there any specific types of person would more likely under the case of domestic violence? I mean female, children or the older.
4. To the solution, what ways of solution or complain could be chosen for the victims?
5. How do the perpetrators get punished in most case? Do you think most of them had been judged appropriately?
6. How many ways of punishment to the perpetrators? Do the victims always are satisfied by the results?

The officer who responded in the interview gave brief answers to above questions.  At the same time, he send a PDF document of a research study about the statistics in the past few years in domestic violence area. Therefore, after the interview, the project is engrossed in this file and got a lot of ideas from the documents. The report relates to figures collated from the Specialist Domestic Violence Court(SDVC) held at West London Magistrates Court. The two boroughs covered by the SDVC are the London Borough of HAMMERSMITH & Fulham (LBHF) and Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC) The time period of the data is from 2003 to 2008.

At the same time, as an personal interest, the research also touch in movies.

There are two mainly relate to Children abusing and one is about resolution of conflicts, respectively named An American Crime, Aurore and the Conflict Resolution Terminal. The research shows the important of against the domestic violence and a facetious example for resolution which inspires a lot to the project. Furthermore, the research searched a number of posters design works for representing ideas. It is found that most of the posters about this topic are using photography realistically as methods to represent the pain brought from domestic violence. They are giving a very strong visual impact to the readers. All these inspired the project a lot about how to develop the similar concept. 

During searching the idea in domestic violence subject, it needs some academic reading for supporting the concepts. There are two books was found. One is named Culture & Conflict Resolution by Kevin Avruch. The other one is named Sexism and the War system by Betty A. Reardon which is slightly more connective to the ideas. The theories that talk about sexism and feminism, enemies and victimes and the peace system are inspired. However, they are too academic to be use practically for developing the more specific concept. So they were not read in details. But they are worth to be mentioned, because they could be really good sources for progressing the academic thinking. 

To conclude, the research results are so helpful for the Design Project A’s development. Especially, it is learnt that the more accurate data being found, the more chance to get a whole picture of the reality of domestic violence subject. Moreover, the data is also the  inspiration for the project, such as the representation form and the images which could show more real violence in the situation. However, it is surprised that the research could not find a good support in academic arean. If it can be done again, it needs to pay special attentions on the reflection and the feeling from the victims who were effected by domestic violence subject. It would be more helpful for the project to develop and show more sensitive meaning in details.   

Bibliography

Avruch, Kevin. Culture & conflict resolution . Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1998. 

Birditt, Kira. "Predicting divorce: U-M study shows how fight styles affect marriage." University of Michigan News Service. http://ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=8006 (accessed January 2, 2011).

Confliction. Dictionary.com. Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/confliction (accessed: January 2, 2011).

Reardon, Betty. Sexism and the war system . New York: Teachers College Press, 1985. 

Sunderland, Ruth. "Of course we must fight for women around the world | Ruth Sunderland | Comment is free | The Observer ." Latest news, comment and reviews from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk . http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/29/ruth-sunderland-afghanistan-women-equality (accessed January 2, 2011).