Everyday terrorism: The story of a Korean victim-survivor of domestic and family violence in Australia

Image of The Ari Project. Photo credit: Andrew Lee.

Hyein Cho, Monash University

The issue of violence against women has been widely debated across sectors, with UN Women referring to it as 'the shadow pandemic'. The current literature to date, however, has not adequately addressed the issues of domestic and family violence (DFV) within the Korean-Australian context. This cross-industry project lends a new perspective, concentrating on structural barriers and transnational experiences of Korean diasporic women in Australia that have influenced their decisions to leave violent relationships.

The project investigator worked closely with Victoria-based creatives to transform the narrative of Ari (a pseudonym), a Korean victim-survivor, into a three-part short film series to highlight her lived experience of DFV in Australia. The first part of this series uses animation to capture Ari's migration to Australia. The second part focuses on her lived experience of DFV and is presented as a music video. The final part uses a dance video to encapsulate how Ari navigated her post-crisis journey. The series is produced in Korean and has English and Chinese subtitles. The aim of this project is to highlight Ari's resilience, capacity and agency, as manifested in her narrative, and to defeat the common stereotypes towards Korean victim-survivors that exist within the broader Australian society. We expect this project to shed new light on the little-recognised issues of DFV within the Korean diasporic communities and intend to make the digital resources available to the public for free to be used as training and educational materials by practitioners, policy makers and educators.

Hyein Cho is a research fellow at the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre at the School of Social Sciences, Monash University. She is a 2022 recipient of the Freilich Project ECR Small Grant.

Updated:  17 February 2022/Responsible Officer:  Freilich Project/Page Contact:  CASS Marketing & Communications