Abstract

A developing body of research focuses on the perpetration of intimate partner abuse and violence by women against male victims, although to-date very little qualitative research has been undertaken in this area. Such research, it is argued, is needed in order to gain more detailed and accurate understandings of the complexities and meanings surrounding intimate partner abuse and violence, including gendered elements, and the interactional milieux in which they occur. Using a symbolic interactionist lens and adopting Goffman’s conceptual device of territories of the self and their potential contamination, this chapter focuses on the thematic analysis of a male victim’s narrative of intimate abuse, as recounted in his personal diary written during the final two years of a long-term abusive relationship,and in a series of in-depth interviews undertaken after he left that relationship. Some of the methodological issues involved in undertaking research on a highly sensitive and emotionally-charged topic are also addressed.