Abstract

Starting from the existing literature on governmental apparatus (Foucault 2001; Ihl et al., 2003) and from the sociology of expertise (Delmas, 2011), this article seeks to analyse the implementation of two institutions utilised by the National Women's Service (abbreviated to SERNAM in Spanish). We begin with a study of the practices of professionals in the social sector, who work with women suffering domestic violence. The institutions studied are the “Refuges for women victims of serious violence” and the “Women's Centres”. These institutions cater mainly for a marginalised population, excluded from society because of their origins in the economically disadvantaged social classes. They implement practices that contribute to the “normalisation of women” through the distortion of processes with an originally emancipatory aim. Thus, in this article we pose the question as to whether social work professionals involved with these institutions participate in the construction of new “alterities” or whether their interventions constitute the reproduction of the system of social inequalities that is present at the core of this society.