The abandonment of the family courts' intrafamily violence procedures

Abstract

This article analyses the abandonment of the intrafamily violence procedures of Chilean family courts. The abandonment designates a process of political, institutional, and technical exclusion that has rendered these procedures problematic within Chilean justice administration and, consequently, in the state’s response to gender violence. The article is based on an ethnographic fieldwork conducted during 2017 and develops a historical itinerary of the position of abandonment based on Chilean literature and ethnographic material. Thus, the article demonstrates the complexity of IFV procedures abandonment in the FCs’ everyday work. The article has two main objectives. First, addressing a gap in the literature concerning the visibilization and contextualization of this part of Chilean judicial work. Second, highlighting legal ethnography as a methodology useful for developing a transdisciplinary approach to the administration of justice.

Keywords

• Intrafamily violence
• family courts
• legal ethnography