Symbolic pride Understanding violence against cisgender and non-cisgender women in Vietnam

This thesis narrates how pride in symbolic or transformative forms determines women’s and perpetrators’ experiences of and responses to cases of violence. The research was conceptualized based on theories about the formation and transformation of power and resistance, including symbolic violence, panopticon surveillance and technologies of the self as practices of freedom. The manifestation and resistance of symbolic violence are examined using comparative design to look at violence perpetrated against two groups of women – cisgender and non‐cisgender women. The research finds that symbolic pride, a form of symbolic violence, underlies the endurance of husband’s violence against cisgender married women, as well as the violent acts against non‐cisgender people, the self‐destruction of non‐cisgender women and the complicity of institutions such as family, school, local government in these cases of violence. Heteronormativity, which is not limited to heterosexual relationships but refers to social norms and expectations of stable and reproductive relationships, plays an overarching role in shaping the symbolic pride. The action part of this research shows that symbolic pride can be transformed and substituted by transformative pride, which helps people recognize violence and motivates people to stop the violence. The research also finds that the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, poverty, substance abuse, and illness among other factors is indispensable in understanding violence and creating transformation. Intersectionality is core to the subversion and resistance to violence.