Toward a Cartography of Domestic Violence: A Deleuze-Guattarian Schizoanalysis on the Matter and Function of Domestic Violence Regimes

Abstract

The theory and praxis of domestic violence were developed by feminists firstly, to describe conditions of violence within the patriarchal family and, secondly, to prescribe a means for women’s liberation. However, although the theory and praxis of domestic violence are conceptualized through a feminist lens, the anti-violence movement has served to strengthen the carceral state. Intersectional and queer theorists have criticized the role of anti-violence in the carceral system and expanded the theory and praxis of domestic violence. As a means to grasp the insights of intersectional and queer theorists on the critique of state violence, the following paper develops Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis of the four regimes of violence. These regimes include ritualized violence and struggle, criminal violence, state violence, and war violence. Where ritualized, violence and struggle represent the foundational theory of domestic violence, criminal and state violence provide two sides of a bifurcated cooptation of feminist theory. In order to turn anti-violence against the state, war violence as linked to the war machine provides a schizoanalytic frame for anti-violence praxis.