Abstract
Intimate partner violence (IPV) in migrant and refugee communities is often poorly understood, with blame often placed on culture as the primary cause of violence and abuse. This problematization of culture obscures the positive role that culture can play in health promotion, blames, shames, and “others” the community, and obscures the role that social structures play. This chapter uses research with African immigrant communities in Chicago to illustrate how social structures interact with culture to produce situations unique to the affected community members. Considering how social structures might provide barriers and promote inequities in immigrant communities and how these structural barriers intersect with cultural aspects, such as gender constructs, provides a more nuanced understanding of the experiences of immigrant communities. By drawing on concepts from both anthropology and sociology to consider how cultural and structural factors intersect, this chapter uses examples to demonstrate how researchers can draw on multiple disciplines from social science to be able to better negotiate that intersecting space and understand the complexities that influence IPV in African immigrant communities.