Violence and Maltreatment in Relational Ecologies: Toward an Epistemology of Corresponsability

Abstract

This article is about family violence. Firstly, it synthesizes the panoramic vision of hegemonic explicative models, classified as psychological and sociological. It also contrasts, exposes and exalts the merits of the so-called Ecological Approach of Domestic Violence defended by Donald Dutton, and tries to show that such a framework of ideas requires the exploration of a relational epistemology that transcends the classical purpose of the reductionist proposals (obsessed with the pursuit of an ultimate cause). The ecological perspective is encouraged to exercise no-linear ways of thinking, but the combination of various existing theories, under the premise that violence is a complex and multicausal phenomenon, and therefore more suitable for pluritheoretical treatment than for disciplinary monopoly.