“While we wait”: An ethnographic study of waiting in the court journeys of domestic violence victim‐survivors from Northern India

Abstract The aim of the study was to understand the lived experiences of women Domestic Violence (DV) victim‐survivors documented through the time they spend in the District Courts of Rajasthan. The focus of this article is on the ‘waiting’ experiences of women DV victim‐survivors in court premises. The research questions asked are: How is time and ‘waiting’ experienced by women DV victim‐survivors? In what ways does the waiting time and court space interact to impact women DV victim‐survivors’ lives? The central method employed in the study is ethnographic fieldwork conducted for six months within court premises. The paper documents the multiple meanings of ‘waiting’ time for women DV victim‐survivors in courts. Additionally, it constructs the waiting time for women in courts as an arduous and lonely endeavour where they carve out temporary coping spaces with other survivor‐victims. By contextualizing waiting as a significant yet often overlooked dimension of victim‐survivors’ struggles within the socio‐cultural milieu of Rajasthan, the paper contributes to anthropological scholarship on women's engagements with legal infrastructures.