Women's Studies, 2021, 50(5): 498-515

This article documents the challenges and lessons learned from conducting a feminist qualitative study of women’s experiences of gendered oppression within intimate relationships. Specifically, the study explored women’s experiences of intimate financial violence and how these experiences took shape within both the pre- and post-separation stages of their relationships. In this context, intimate financial violence refers to the myriad of ways that financial resources (ranging from money to property to employment status) can be used to control and terrorize one’s intimate partner. This form of control, however, is acutely gendered and therefore is understood to be predominantly undertaken by men toward their female intimate partners due to the privileged position men are able to hold within a largely patriarchal society. [1] The project, like many others, carried out by feminist scholars concerning women’s experiences of oppression (see, for example, Ahmed; Armstrong; Frost and Holt; Godfrey; Kirsch; Liamputtong; Melrose; Morse; Morse and Mitcham) was deeply challenging for both researchers. This article, therefore, documents these challenges and what was learned from this process. (Author's abstract). Record #8321