Academic interest in domestic violence is about thirty years old, wherein various factors that cause domestic violence have been identified. Psychologists have examined the individual, sociologists have studied the family and feminists have studied the woman victim. In these efforts, the role pf space has been sidelined. Space in domestic violence is important because the abuse takes place within a definite spatial context, and this raises questions about the safety of home, spaces women victims consider safe, and how the social dichotomy of public and private space impacts these notions of safety. This thesis is based on a survey conducted amongst abused South Asian immigrant women who had sought refuge at Raksha, a support and referral network, in Atlanta. The focus is on seven women and this research examines their perspectives of home and safe space, and how isolation and social ethos regarding space, and immigration shape these notions.
