When domestic violence was rediscovered in the early 1970s (Fineman and Mykitiuk, Reference Fineman and Mykitiuk1994), the French Minister for Women, Madam Giraud, labelled it ‘le vice Anglais’ (Daily Express, 21 April 1975). We now know it is a global problem (Corrin, Reference Corrin1996; MacKinnon, Reference Mackinnon2006). A study of ten European countries found that one in four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime, and one in eight annually (Council of Europe, 2002).

The literature on domestic violence is voluminous (for a bibliography see Freeman, Reference Freeman2008). Not surprisingly, it has even acquired its own journal (Violence Against Women Footnote ¹). I therefore wondered what I was likely to learn from a slim new monograph whose focus was on the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The answer is I learnt a lot. Everyday Harm is unquestionably one of the most significant contributions to our understanding of violence against women published in recent years.

The book combines detailed ethnographic research with theoretical analysis. Trinidad and Tobago was the first country in the English-speaking Caribbean to prohibit by separate legislation domestic violence. It did this in 1991. Lazarus-Black addresses questions about this legislation which will interest lawyers (though the account of the law could be fuller and clearer), students of law and society research, social theorists, anthropologists and those with an interest in gender studies, as well as advocates for social change. Why and when does law – specifically domestic violence law – get written? Why does so little result from that legislation? More specifically, ‘what happens in and around courts that makes it so difficult for people to obtain their legally available rights and protections?’ (p. 3). What can domestic violence law mean for women’s empowerment, gender equity and protection? This question is not fully answered by Lazarus-Black, a matter to which I will return. And, how do cultural norms and practices ‘intercept’ the law so that domestic violence can become ‘understandable’, in particular to judges (p. 3)?

The book is about ‘regendering the state’ (see also Lazarus-Black, Reference Lazarus-black1994). In Trinidad and Tobago’s case it is, she points out, heterosexual regendering: homosexuality is still a serious criminal offence and therefore the Domestic Violence Act does not accord protection to those in gay relationships. ‘Regendering the state’ is the process of bringing to public attention and legal consideration categories and activities formerly ‘without name’. The 1991 Act changed the boundaries between public and private as regards family life. The state was regendered in that it names domestic violence as a crime that overwhelmingly affects women (see also Fineman and Mykitiuk, Reference Fineman and Mykitiuk1994).

That this happened is explained by four factors, but in particular the influences of global and local women’s movements (and see Howe, Reference Howe, Fineman and Thomadsen1991). We know from English history that violence against women has only been seen as a social problem demanding a public response at periods when feminism is vibrant. Erin Pizzey’s Scream Quietly (Reference Pizzey1979) was addressed to a public already sensitised to women’s issues by the feminist writings of the early 1970s. Lazarus-Black points to the ‘language of a global discourse about domestic violence’ (p. 25) which was inserted into the debate in Trinidad. Domestic violence has become an international human rights issue (Thomas and Beasley, Reference Thomas and Beasley1995).

Legislation is important (Freeman, Reference Freeman1974, chapter 3). It is an unequivocal declaration of public policy. Law shifts the balance of power. It can also influence moral standards. It connotes authoritative, legitimate action. When enacted it is an accomplished fact. But we know that shifting existing norms is more difficult in expressive areas of life, in particular within the family (Aubert, Reference Freeman1966). And so Lazarus-Black found. Chapter 2 (co-authored by Patricia McCall) reports on fieldwork conducted in an area of northern Trinidad which she calls ‘Pelau’. Seventy-seven percent of applicants for protection orders failed to get them. This, says Lazarus-Black, is a ‘startlingly high percentage’ (p. 61). What is then a highly significant legal reform is undermined, and what Lazarus-Black does is explain why.

This is the meat of the book and is, I think, as detailed and insightful an analysis of how everyday practices frustrate good intentions as there is. She writes, of course, only about domestic violence laws and only about Trinidad, but she offers a model of how work can be done on other laws in other locales.

It has been conventional, since the days of Pound (Reference Pound1954) and Llewellyn (Reference Llewellyn1931), to comment on the gap between ‘law in the books’ and ‘law in action’. What Lazarus-Black offers us is an analysis of what goes on in this interpretive space. She quotes Paulette Pierce – an article which has escaped my attention until now – as referring to the substitution of formal equality for true equality as ‘structural deflection’ (Pierce, Reference Pierce and Williams1996). Lazarus-Black explains this ‘structural deflection’ in the context of Trinidad’s domestic violence legislation.

The legislation has had some success. Some women do get protective orders. The law has, she says, though she offers no evidence for this, changed people’s minds about what is permissible in the ‘discipline’ of women. It has also, she says, but again she offers insufficient evidence to substantiate this, ‘shifted relations of domination and subordination and realigned issues of agency and structure in Trinidadian society’ (p. 28). She also demonstrates that some categories of women are more likely to be successful than others. She is not the first to find this, even in domestic violence, but the division of victims into the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ is common to many other areas, including rape and hearings for asylum. We must not discount the fact that there has been some success. She reports also on the alternative to an order, the undertaking, which perpetrators have often agreed to.

But how is the ‘structural deflection’ to be accounted for? In part, it is by court rites, everyday activities in the court which reproduce – that is they fail to eliminate – inequities. They help to perpetuate structures of domination. As Lazarus-Black puts it, ‘legal reform can be undermined by the legal process’ (p. 92). Court rites are ‘secularly stylized events and processes that occur regularly in the legal processing and enforcement of court orders and that preserve and promote class and gender hierarchies’ (p. 92). She points to twelve rites and illustrates each by reference to the case of ‘Alena’. Among the rites are creating an environment in which individuals feel they cannot speak freely because the listeners hold power over them. Judith Wittner (1996) had found this in a domestic violence court in Chicago, and Lazarus-Black finds it in ‘Pelau’ too. Another ‘rite’ is ‘delegalizing’, redefining troubles as trivial, unworthy of legal attention, or as problems that require counselling or mediation but not legal redress. ‘Silencing’ is a further court rite which is significant for our understanding of domestic violence litigation. It involves the hearing of some voices but not others; the inability to tell one’s story. Thus, women in Trinidad are silenced (and humiliated) by police officers who trivialise their cases. Giving assailants ‘second chances’ is another example of a court rite – commonly used with what Americans call ‘deadbeat dads’ – found in domestic violence cases in Trinidad. These rites, and the others she analyses, often combine in ways that keep already subordinated people in their place and undermine their chances of being successful. These rites go unnoticed most of the time, but, of course, they frustrate the rights of domestic violence applicants. The rites are set out here as coherently (and logically) as anywhere.

But it is not just court rites which obtrude. There is also the manipulation of time. Little attention has been given to the factor of time in the study of the legal process. Greenhouse’s ‘Just in Time’ (Reference Greenhouse1989) and Rebecca French’s ‘Time in the Law’ (Reference French2001) stand out as investigations of the role of time. Lazarus-Black adds further to our understanding of the way time operates. This is important because domestic violence scholarship has overlooked the ‘meaning, centrality, and complexity’ of time’s influence in the processing of domestic violence cases. Lazarus-Black offers us a full explanation of the role of time, of how, for example, complaints are dropped because of adjournments, how abuses wear down their victims and how this erodes the agency and entitlement that brought complainants to court in the first place. The chapter on ‘time’ (chapter 5) is worth prescribing, along with Greenhouse and French, as texts to anyone studying ‘time’ and the legal process.

In addition to court rites and the impact of time, there is a third factor which negates the impact of the law. Lazarus-Black talks of ‘cultures of reconciliation’. Law, of course, functions in a particular historical and cultural context. In Trinidad this is shaped by a powerful culture of reconciliation, reflecting how Trinidadians perceive family and gender relationships and why they make certain choices to make a living. As a case for protection proceeds, it is subject to ‘the hegemonic ideas that “husband–wife business” is “private business”, that public attention to family quarrels is unsavoury, that families should remain stable, that women should turn the other cheek for the sake of their children…that every effort should be made to resolve family disputes by reconciliation rather than by formal legal redress’ (p. 156). This culture of reconciliation is, of course, not unique to Trinidad, and Lazarus-Black helpfully draws on evidence from other societies to show the prevalence of such a culture elsewhere. She refers, for example, to Sally Engle Merry’s well-known work in Hawaii. There are, of course, variations of cultures of reconciliation, and Lazarus-Black acknowledges this.

In short, this is a fascinating and insightful study of why domestic violence laws may hit barriers. It is well written and provides us with a lively, readable account. The use of case-studies is particularly valuable. I offer only a few points, not so much to criticise, as to engage in the debate. Many references are made in the book to women’s agency. But do we discover enough about what the women themselves think? Do we get an insight into what unsuccessful applicants do next? Are they deterred from pursuing the remedies, are they alienated from the legal system? How many of them go on to divorce their husbands? There is not a lot of discussion of divorce in this study. There is also no discussion of child abuse. Obviously, this is not the focus of the study and therefore it may be thought churlish to make the observation. But domestic violence and child abuse often accompany each other. It would be interesting to know how child abuse is tackled by Trinidadian society and its courts and social work agencies. The cane is still used in Trinidadian schools, and therefore not surprisingly the debate about the hitting of children has barely emerged. But if the culture is to change – and only a cultural revolution will see the demise of domestic violence (Freeman, Reference Freeman1980) – it must address parent–child relationships as well, and possibly even first. Finally, Lazarus-Black tells us very little about the judges (‘magistrates’) who hear the applications. We know that some of them are women, but only because the female pronoun is occasionally used. It would be interesting to discover whether the behaviour patterns of female magistrates were different from their male counterparts (I am assuming the latter constitute the majority). Do they dismiss more or fewer cases? Do they use ‘court rites’ or ‘time’ differently? Have different concepts of reconciliation? Are they perhaps keener on it?

These are minor quibbles because this is a real contribution to our understanding of the limits of domestic violence laws. It deserves to be replicated elsewhere in other jurisdictions, and I hope it will be.