The Challenge of Gathering Violence Against Women Data in the Heartland: Reflections on Previous Research in Rural Communities

• In Event: Methodological Challenges in Rural Criminology

Abstract

Social scientific research on violence against women quickly exploded on the scene in the latter part of the last decade. Though this major threat to rural women’s health and well-being no longer remains at the criminological margins, there is still much we do not know about it. The main objective of this paper is to answer two questions: What do we know about violence against rural women and what do we need to know? Special attention will be devoted to addressing the need to gather data from male offenders, expanding the study of the “dark side” of new technologies in rural areas (e.g., image-based sexual abuse and cyber stalking), and to creating new ways of examining the plight of women in the Global South.

Author

• Walter Steven DeKeseredy, West Virginia University