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This article engages in a reflexive, critical, analysis, re-examining data from an earlier project that used qualitative interviewing to investigate the experiences of women who came into contact with police because of situations of ‘verbal abuse’. In the present article, we use discursive psychology to explore how the women navigated narratives of abuse during the interviews; the ideological influences at play; and constructions of identity. During the interviews, the women worked to construct favourable social identities, by drawing on institutional discourse, direct, and indirect speech. Their narratives revealed the influence of neoliberal ideologies and practices on their understandings of intimate partner violence and their victim identities. While they were committed to a neoliberal worldview that emphasized individualism, they simultaneously recognized the need for police intervention. These contradictory ideological investments were reflected in the women’s fluctuating identity constructions as disempowered/empowered victim, and victim/perpetrator. We argue that such competing investments, for these women and the broader public, create ideological dilemmas which inhibit collective action towards social change.
