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Defining Violence

Eugene Aisenberg, Amelia Gavin, Gita Mehrotra, and Jennifer Bowman

in Violence in Context: Current Evidence on Risk, Protection, and Prevention

Chapter 2 provides an overview of differing conceptualizations and definitions of violence. Authors explore varying criteria used to define violence and consider how the lack of a consensus ... More

Chapter 2 provides an overview of differing conceptualizations and definitions of violence. Authors explore varying criteria used to define violence and consider how the lack of a consensus definition of violence impacts research, policy, and practice. Content of Chapter 2 focuses on challenges and limitations of current measurement approaches. The chapter also sets a foundation for definitions used in subsequent chapters of the book.Less

Violence

Charles Devellennes

in The Gilets Jaunes and the New Social Contract

This chapter deals with the questions of violence and Hobbes' theory of the state. Violence refers to a variety of different types of action. The chapter draws an important distinction between two ... More

This chapter deals with the questions of violence and Hobbes' theory of the state. Violence refers to a variety of different types of action. The chapter draws an important distinction between two main types of violence: physical violence (often referred to as simply 'violence'), and moral violence (often qualified by other terms, such as 'spiritual', 'structural' or 'psychological' violence). Both physical and moral violence are coercive and engender resistance. They are coercive in the sense that they seek to change the behaviour of others. But violence also has a subjective element. For it to qualify as violence, it needs to be perceived as such by others. Typically, violence needs to be recognized as such by those on whom it is exercised. The term 'violence', when used on its own, implies that there is a physical aspect to it. Non-physical uses of the term 'violence' need it to be qualified, typically, for interlocutors to make sense of what type of violence is being discussed. Physical violence is material in that it uses material means to achieve its ends. Moral violence is the result of attempting to achieve ends through blackmail, spying and manipulation. This bureaucratic violence, as a form of moral violence, is the one that is characteristic of the modern nation state and largely explains its successes and failures. State violence today relies mostly on this type of moral violence to create compliance.Less

Inoculations of Evil in the U.S.-Mexican Border Region: Reflections on the Genocidal Potential of Symbolic Violence

Carole Nagengast

in Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide

This chapter discusses the genocidal potential of everyday symbolic violence. It studies a situation where difference has been essentialized, but has not yet led to genocide. It argues that although ... More

This chapter discusses the genocidal potential of everyday symbolic violence. It studies a situation where difference has been essentialized, but has not yet led to genocide. It argues that although Latinos are victimized by forms of symbolic and physical violence analogous to those that occur in genocide, there are certain constraints that have prevented such violence from rising into genocide.Less

Introduction

Cindy D. Ness

in Why Girls Fight: Female Youth Violence in the Inner City

This book explores the social, cultural, and psychological components of female violence in inner-city neighborhoods on a collective level, as well as the responses to those structuring conditions on ... More

This book explores the social, cultural, and psychological components of female violence in inner-city neighborhoods on a collective level, as well as the responses to those structuring conditions on an individual level. In order to understand both the psychological and social worlds of violent girls, the author spent almost two years “hanging out” with girls in Melrose Park and Lee, two impoverished urban neighborhoods in Philadelphia. This book examines the reasons why female adolescents in such areas so readily engage in street fights and other forms of physical violence. It considers the instrumental and symbolic value that physical aggression, particularly street fighting, has for girls in inner cities. The text argues that street fighting in poor urban enclaves is not simply a “telltale” sign of individual emotional pathology, but part of carrying out girlhood, and that the girls' relationship to physical aggression is shaped by different cultural standards and social realities associated with race and class. The book also discusses the motivations and experiences of girls involved in the criminal justice system.Less

Conclusion

Cindy D. Ness

in Why Girls Fight: Female Youth Violence in the Inner City

This book has investigated the confluence of social, cultural, and individual factors that account for the physical violence among girls in the low-income neighborhoods of Melrose Park and Lee in ... More

This book has investigated the confluence of social, cultural, and individual factors that account for the physical violence among girls in the low-income neighborhoods of Melrose Park and Lee in Philadelphia. It has shown that girls resort to street fighting for reasons that are far more complex than the stereotypes and generalities that have often been put forward to explain their aggressive behavior imply. It has provided evidence that youth violence in low-income neighborhoods, whether carried out by males or females, is in large part a reaction to a sense of actual and perceived threat, as well as a compensatory attempt to increase a sense of security in both concrete and psychological terms. This concluding chapter offers some suggestions to truly understand the dynamics of girls' violence patterns in inner cities and what it means when girls fight.Less

Physical Violence

Mona Lena Krook

in Violence against Women in Politics

Chapter 12 provides an overview of physical forms of violence against women in politics. Physical violence encompasses a wide range of bodily harms involving unwanted contact and confinement ... More

Chapter 12 provides an overview of physical forms of violence against women in politics. Physical violence encompasses a wide range of bodily harms involving unwanted contact and confinement resulting in death or injury. The tangible nature of these acts makes them the most widely recognized and least contested forms of violence against women. They tend to be relatively rare, however, with offenders opting for “less costly” means of violence before escalating to physical attacks. While legal redress may be a solution for at least some forms of physical violence, politically active women have developed a number of grassroots strategies to respond to and anticipate physical violence. At the same time, individual women and state actors have devised new preventive security arrangements, seeking to avert or mitigate the effects of physical attacks.Less

“Illegality,” Mass Deportation, and the Threat of Violent Arrest: Structural Violence and Social Suffering in the Lives of Undocumented Migrant Workers in Israel

Sarah S. Willen

in Trauma and Memory: Reading, Healing, and Making Law

This chapter describes how migrant workers' lives are shaped and constrained by multiple, overlapping forms of “structural violence.” It concentrates on the mass deportation campaign of migrant ... More

This chapter describes how migrant workers' lives are shaped and constrained by multiple, overlapping forms of “structural violence.” It concentrates on the mass deportation campaign of migrant workers in Israel since mid-2002 and the construction of their “illegality.” Israel has been eager to apply both legally recruited transnational migrant workers and their undocumented counterparts in multiple labor sectors. The immigration police uses physical violence and brutality in the course of arrest. Some narratives of violent arrest affected the average Israelis. The quality of relative communality and social support that led the mass deportations has decomposed. It can be stated that the deportation campaign has brought a heightened sense of vulnerability, anxiety, and terror into undocumented migrants' individual lifeworlds, and destroyed the social fabric of their collective, group lifeworlds.Less

Girls’ Violent Behavior as Viewed from the Streets

Cindy D. Ness

in Why Girls Fight: Female Youth Violence in the Inner City

This chapter provides a sense of what girls' violence “looks like from the street” by focusing on how girls in the Melrose Park and Lee neighborhoods experience causing physical harm, as well as the ... More

This chapter provides a sense of what girls' violence “looks like from the street” by focusing on how girls in the Melrose Park and Lee neighborhoods experience causing physical harm, as well as the meanings they assign to doing so. It also considers the factors that drive a girl to engage in a fight, how girls construct and negotiate elements of identity and status through the practice of physical violence, and what instrumental value that engaging in violence has for them. It shows how fighting solidifies peer relations for girls and allows them to express their youthful exuberance. Moreover, it discusses the involvement of the criminal justice system in the life of a girl and the ways that street fighting serves as a kind of proving ground for girls to build up a sense of invulnerability and fearlessness.Less

Manly Shame

Joseph Roisman

in The Rhetoric of Manhood: Masculinity in the Attic Orators

This chapter concentrates on the expectation, revealed and manipulated in the orations, that men are guardians against shame in both the public and private realms, and the dilemmas attendant on that ... More

This chapter concentrates on the expectation, revealed and manipulated in the orations, that men are guardians against shame in both the public and private realms, and the dilemmas attendant on that expectation. With some reservations, ancient Athens can be viewed as a shame culture, that is, a culture that emphasized the power of shame in guiding moral behavior. The rhetoric of military defeat is discussed. Athenian men were particularly vulnerable to deliberate attempts on the part of other men to shame them. Physical violence unconnected to war and sport could also tarnish manliness in ancient Athens. The use of shame to promote conformity and moral conduct was supposed to complement the wish of Athenian men to protect their honor. The speeches indicate that the injunction that Athenian men guard against shame was an unattainable ideal subject to manipulation.Less

Mothers, Daughters, and the Double-Generation Dynamic

Cindy D. Ness

in Why Girls Fight: Female Youth Violence in the Inner City

This chapter explores the role played by family and peers in the Melrose Park and Lee neighborhoods in socializing a girl to use violence and supporting her image as a fighter. More specifically, it ... More

This chapter explores the role played by family and peers in the Melrose Park and Lee neighborhoods in socializing a girl to use violence and supporting her image as a fighter. More specifically, it considers the double-generation dynamic where mother and daughter fight side by side. It shows that there are mothers who had a history of fighting when they were younger, and that some even continue to engage in street fights. It shows that the girls' reliance on peers, female relatives, and even their mothers to come to their aid if outnumbered in a fight is an integral part of the anatomy of girls' violence. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the cultural and social dimensions of the mother-daughter alliance with regard to physical violence.Less

The abused child?

Moira Maguire

in Precarious Childhood in Post-Independence Ireland

This chapter investigates the physical and sexual violence to which children were subjected in twentieth-century Ireland. The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC), in spite ... More

This chapter investigates the physical and sexual violence to which children were subjected in twentieth-century Ireland. The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC), in spite of its founding mission to protect children from ‘cruelty,’ rarely dealt with explicit cases of cruelty, abuse, or assault in the course of their daily rounds. The use of corporal punishment in national schools is then discussed. Children were subject to a significant degree of sexual violence in twentieth-century Ireland. Sentencing and conviction patterns show that sexual crimes against children were not treated as serious, and no one recognized the potentially harmful long-term effects of sexual abuse on children. Irish society at all levels tolerated a degree of violence against children that was striking in its regularity and routineness.Less

The Reasons Girls Give for Fighting

Cindy D. Ness

in Why Girls Fight: Female Youth Violence in the Inner City

This chapter considers the reasons that girls in the Melrose Park and Lee neighborhoods give for fighting, as well as what actually happens when they fight. It examines the “emotional logic” that ... More

This chapter considers the reasons that girls in the Melrose Park and Lee neighborhoods give for fighting, as well as what actually happens when they fight. It examines the “emotional logic” that underlies and organizes girls' thinking when they resort to physical violence and how it intersects with shared issues surrounding race, poverty, and social inequality. It also discusses the instrumental value of alliances into which girls enter with other girls to protect themselves against being physically assaulted or “rolled on” by a group of girls. It shows that many girls seem to think that making the first move in a fight is the best strategy, especially if they are not sure of how good of a fighter their opponent is. In other words, they strongly adhere to the idea of striking first, rather than take a wait-and-see attitude, before displaying their capacity to defend themselves. This chapter concludes with an analysis of the girls' use of weapons, from bat to knife, in street fights.Less

Hiding a Ritual of Obedience: From Legitimization to Civilization

Emmanuel Taïeb

in Hiding the Guillotine: Public Executions in France, 1870-1939

This chapter describes executions as rituals of obedience and discusses how it was used in the symbolic construction of the relationship between rulers and citizens by attempting to force individual ... More

This chapter describes executions as rituals of obedience and discusses how it was used in the symbolic construction of the relationship between rulers and citizens by attempting to force individual internalization of the state's monopoly over legitimate physical violence. The chapter talks about how the elimination of executionary publicity becomes inseparable from the practices of the modern public sphere. Under the Third Republic, many people learned to be the spectators of new sights that worked by representing a reality that was physically absent (dioramas, cinema) and in turn acquired new standards of speed. They came to find executions too slow, marred by shocking incidents, severed from reality, and likely to produce unhealthy emotions. Ultimately, these spectators began to develop a public culture accustomed to more distanced forms of political communication. The depublicization of executions was achieved when the authorities concluded that the public spectacle of death no longer had an exemplary effect and was no longer a tool that legitimized the state's monopoly over physical violence.Less

Violence and Damages

in Criminals and Victims

Crime victims experience the consequences of crime directly in the form of physical injury, emotional trauma, and lost property. This chapter examines two particular consequences of crime: physical ... More

Crime victims experience the consequences of crime directly in the form of physical injury, emotional trauma, and lost property. This chapter examines two particular consequences of crime: physical violence and monetary damages. It studies the connection between criminal actions, extraction of loot, the possibility of victim resistance and the incidence of victim injury. It begins with a conceptual analysis of commercial robberies by applying aspects of the criminal planning model to help frame the essential logic of criminal violence and damages. It then moves on to modeling outcomes relating to the incidence of victim injury and the amount of money actually stolen using probit analysis and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) data on convenience store robberies.Less

Playing the Game: Generating and Keeping your Chips

Simon Harding

in The Street Casino: Survival in violent street gangs

This chapter elucidates how the Game is played by young people who strategise by earning respect and building a reputation. This process starts young people in the social field. The declining respect ... More

This chapter elucidates how the Game is played by young people who strategise by earning respect and building a reputation. This process starts young people in the social field. The declining respect for Olders and adults is addressed alongside how young people seek to fast-track their respect and building of street capital by using brand names and pre-fixes. Though such means each establishes a reputation as a player. Examples are given such as physical violence, graffiti and criminal damage are followed by gang colours and ways of building both a gang and a neighbourhood reputation. Finally control of public space and the use of dogs are covered.Less

The City of Philadelphia and Female Youth Violence

Cindy D. Ness

in Why Girls Fight: Female Youth Violence in the Inner City

This chapter focuses on Philadelphia's troubles as a city, which began in the mid-1950s as a result of American “deindustrialization”—the large-scale shift from an industrial economy to a service and ... More

This chapter focuses on Philadelphia's troubles as a city, which began in the mid-1950s as a result of American “deindustrialization”—the large-scale shift from an industrial economy to a service and information economy. It considers the adverse social, economic, and cultural consequences of a significant decline in manufacturing in the city, with particular emphasis on the problem of youth violence. It also examines changes in the juvenile justice system in response to the rise in violent crime that hit Philadelphia beginning in the mid 1980s. Finally, it discusses the Philadelphia neighborhoods of Melrose Park and Lee, where the author conducted her study of girls engaged in physical violence, and provides an overview of the study's participants.Less