In this essay, I use a case of testifying as an expert witness to argue that the anthropological focus on multicausality, context, and the social/cultural origins of persecution is useful and necessary in asylum cases. The government attorney argued that the persecutor's violence was “personal,” related only to his alcoholism, not the victim's identity as his wife. I argued that regardless of his personal history, the violence and the “excuses and justifications” that he used were patterned and based in cultural ideologies about gender. In a criminal case this might provide a “cultural defense” to avoid culpability. However, in asylum cases the social/cultural origins of violence help meet the legal criteria for asylum.

中文翻译：

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当暴力既不是“个人”也不是“一般”时

在本文中，我使用一个作为专家证人作证的案例来论证人类学对多因果关系、背景和迫害的社会/文化起源的关注在庇护案件中是有用和必要的。政府律师辩称，迫害者的暴力行为是“个人的”，只与他的酗酒有关，与受害者作为他妻子的身份无关。我认为，无论他的个人历史如何，他使用的暴力和“借口和理由”都是基于关于性别的文化意识形态的模式和基础。在刑事案件中，这可能会提供一种“文化防御”来避免罪责。然而，在庇护案件中，暴力的社会/文化根源有助于满足庇护的法律标准。