The nuances of agency: Latina survivors of gender violence and gatekeepers of citizenship in the U.S.

Generally, agency has been equated with resistance and assumed to be universal.  Black and postcolonial feminist theories have emphasized the relevance of contextualizing and differentiating agency with the end goal of uncovering the complex dynamics of oppression and subordination, particularly in matters related to violence against women.  In this vein, I share the experiences of Latina immigrant survivors of intimate partner violence in their search for autonomy and citizenship at a U.S. legal nonprofit organization in Texas.  Based on two years of activist research, I discuss how both legislation and nonprofit organizations created to assist battered immigrants formally and informally frame survivors’ agency, which is not only structurally and situationally constrained, but often compliant and unintended.  By looking at the nuances of agency in this context, I reveal the ways in which certain women are able to negotiate the constraints and complete their citizenship application process successfully, while others, often the most destitute ones, tend to be weeded out of this process.  At the same time, I analyze the agency of nonprofit workers in their role as what I call “gatekeepers of citizenship,” as well as the power that advocates have had to push for policy change and further social justice within the battered immigrants’ movement to this day.