Excessive Violence Research Articles

The India League and the Condition of India: Agnotological Imperialism, Colonial State Violence and the Making of Anticolonial Knowledge 1930–4

Abstract This article explores the 1932 visit to India of a delegation of Labour party figures associated with the India League, a prominent anticolonial organisation based in London, charged with investigating the colonial state violence unleashed by ‘Ordinance Rule’. It also examines efforts taken by the Government of India, India Office and Indian Political Intelligence to suppress their findings, through which it explores a dialectic between anticolonial knowledge-making and agnotological imperialism, which often took the form of the latter ‘exceptioning’ examples produced by the former of excessive colonial state violence. It offers the conclusion that the contradictions between liberal imperialism and the rule of colonial difference and repression in the age of mass nationalism in India and mass democracy in Britain meant that liberal imperialism in India increasingly flowed, paradoxically, from illiberalism in Britain.

Alcohol Abuse and Physical Violence towards a Partner: How Can We Attenuate the Relationship? A Study on Emotional Dysregulation in Adolescents.

The previous literature has revealed the relationship between alcohol abuse and violent behaviours; however, the results are not always conclusive, highlighting the need to explore other variables that allow us to establish risk profiles. The goal is to examine whether the relation between alcohol abuse and physical violence towards a partner can be influenced (moderate) by difficulties in emotional regulation. A public high school in Manabí (Ecuador). A total of 1519 high school students with ages between 14 and 18 years (mean = 15.77, SD = 1.22), with 54% (n = 820) being male. The measures we observed were alcohol abuse (i.e., frequency of alcohol abuse in the past 30 days), physical violence exercised towards a partner (Violence Received, Exercised and Perceived in Dating Relationships of Young People and Adolescents) and emotional dysregulation (Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale; DERS). It is observed that there exists significantly higher alcohol abuse in males, regardless of their age, as well as more physical violence by adolescent males towards their partners. Direct effects of alcohol abuse on physical intimate partner violence are observed in males from the age of 16 and in females from the age of 14. Moreover, the direct effects of different emotional dysregulation strategies on physical violence depend on gender. The moderating effects of emotional dysregulation strategies between alcohol abuse and physical intimate partner violence are observed only in the case of adolescent females (16-17 years). In particular, emotional dysregulation variables such as non-awareness, impulse, nonacceptance, or lack of strategies interfere as moderators in the relationship between excessive alcohol abuse and physical violence towards a partner. In the case of non-awareness, contrary to the other three, when scores are low or moderate, a statistically significant relationship between alcohol abuse and violence is observed.

Police Public Image through the Lens of Community Stakeholders

Police community relation is meant to combat citizen mistrust of the police force. This strategy was developed in the mid-20th century to help officers ​​work more collaboratively with the communities they are assigned to. The hope was that activities such as town hall meetings and “meet and greet” foot patrols would create a partnership between citizens and the police force, increasing trust and ultimately leading to reduced crime. This study explored the views of community stakeholders on the police public image in the province of Southern Leyte through a qualitative research method. The informants of this study were ten individuals from different sectors of society within the province of Southern Leyte. All informants were subjected to an individual in-depth interview. The findings of this study are described in emergent themes. Six (6) emergent themes described the positive and negative views of the informants regarding their current views on the public image. For the positive views, three (3) emergent themes were developed, namely Community Engagement and Cooperation, Trust in Police and Public Safety, and Commitment to Duty and Profession. For the negative views, three (3) emergent themes were also developed: Use of Excessive Force and Violence, Negative Stereotypes and Public Distrust, and Malfeasance and Inconsistent Law Enforcement. Meanwhile, two (2) emergent themes were formulated to explain how the impact of the police public image affects the community stakeholders, namely, Police as Protector and Police as Public Defender. Finally, four (4) emergent themes were formulated to explain how police activities promote community confidence and trust, namely Enhanced Police Visibility, Community Outreach Program, First Responders in Calamities, and Proactive Information Campaigns. Based on the emergent themes identified, it is recommended that the Philippine National Police (PNP) enhance the efficacy of law enforcement officers by developing stronger relationships with the public and addressing the issues pointed out in the study to restore public confidence. Essential measures may include improving community engagement through transparent communication and enhancing officer training in ethics and accountability.

Enlightenment and Genocide: Johannes Andreas Paravicini’s Mission on Timor in 1756

Abstract The Dutch United East India Company (voc) had a Janus-faced position in early-modern maritime Asia as merchant and politician. The present study highlights this through the case of the Spanish-born diplomat Johannes Andreas Paravicini (1710–71). During his mission to Timor in 1756, he concluded a major contract with numerous indigenous states that ostensibly brought a major part of Timor under the voc, in defiance of the rival Portuguese. The contract itself merits attention as literature due to its Enlightenment rhetoric and stress on general welfare, despite being accompanied by excessive physical violence, genocide, and slaving. The article furthermore scrutinizes the ceremonies and symbols that aimed to subjugate the native states. It is argued that Paravicini, while relying on local informants, misrepresented the Timorese hierarchical power structures and concepts of authority. For the Dutch, this led to a series of disappointments and setbacks in the region during the following decades.

Science Fiction in the Post-occupation Iraqi Short Story in English Translation

English translations of Arabic literary works have interacted with -and possibly influenced- the Western context of science fiction literature. This thesis investigates how the English translations of post-occupation Iraqi short stories possibly contributed to the evolution of the Western science fiction genre. The study seeks to explain the relationship between post-2003 Iraqi literary works -that are a diverse range of corpus- as well as the possible influence of their translations and their counterparts in Anglophone literary systems. The research particularly focuses on Iraq +100 and The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq by Hassan Blasim. Blasim’s edited anthology, Iraq +100, is a prominent element in this study as it is analyzed to illustrate the interrelation between Arabic science fiction and Western traditions of this genre of fiction. As the roles of this edited anthology and short story collection are addressed and discussed in terms of the interaction between Anglophone and Arab literary systems, the study discusses the science fiction theories of Thomas Lombardo (2006) and Darko Suvin (2010). The primary objective of this study is to analyze the two selected books as they are introduced to the Western world and scrutinize how these books can be considered as a response to the evolution of the science fiction genre. Moreover, the translated works of post-occupation Iraqi short stories deal with the political and social impacts of the situation in Iraq after 2003. This thesis follows up by proposing that the anthologized English translations of these Arabic post-occupation Iraqi texts have contributed to the making of a dialogue between Arab and Western cultural and literary canons as well as traditions. The study also analyzes the short stories of the Iraqi writers, as illustrative of a specific expression of post-2003 Iraqi fiction that depicts the terror of violence in Iraq by delivering scenes of excessive violence in their texts. All in all, this study appears as an interdisciplinary work as it engages with translation studies, literary studies, history, and in a way, political science.

Feeding Precarity Between State and Capital: Women Workers and Breastfeeding in Cakung Manufacturing Industry

Women constitute the vital workforce in Indonesia's economy, particularly in sectors like garment, textile, and footwear. Despite their economic importance, these industries are characterised by excessive control, pressure, and violence, transforming women into cheap labour and limiting their lives both in the production and social reproduction realm. This study analyses how the discipline of factory work has implications for women workers in their care work, specifically in breastfeeding. Through a qualitative approach, this study uses focus group discussions (FGD) and interviews with women garment and textile industry workers in Kawasan Berikat Nusantara, North Jakarta. The study also analyses the state's response and position in child-feeding matters. The study shows how the regimented nature of factory work, which controls the energy, time, and bodies of women workers, coupled with the absence of job security and protection from the state, limit workers’ capacity to care for their families, particularly to breastfeed their children. Consequently, women workers have to switch to formula milk. I argue that the workers’ reliance on formula milk illustrates a form of neoliberalism in which the state subjugates women workers to the capitalist economy both in the realms of production and social reproduction, forcing them to live in a precarious condition. This potentially will cause health, nutrition, and other quality of life problems for mothers and children in the future.

Зло как категория современного политического мышления

The article attempts to analyze the understanding of evil both in contemporary political discourse and in everyday word usage. For this purpose, it is proposed to revisit the problem of theodicy, since evil is almost always used in a religious sense. The article distinguishes between the process of secularization, as a result of which the omnipotence of God becomes the property and instrument of political power, and the deconstruction of Christianity, which allows us to move from political theology to secular theodicy, where our ability to think and recognize evil in the world, rather than the problem of God's justification, comes to the fore. The author argues that this is impossible within the framework of political theology, where political evil always conceals and justifies itself. This is the fate of all theodicies, which Kant calls “doctrinal,” in which reason, making a claim against god (or transcendence) is always able to justify it. Kant considers the Book of Job to be the only “authentic” theodicy in which it is suffering itself, or Job's conscience, immanent to the world, that sues god. This is an important step in the direction of secular theodicy, but it is also limited in its desire to be subsumed by deity or authority. The paper suggests that we should pay attention to Job's wife's call to her husband to “curse the Lord and die.” These words become the origin of an alternative theodicy – a theodicy of action, a theodicy of the victim refusing to speak to god. The author finds the beginnings of such a theodicy in Jules Michelet's historical analysis of the religious massacres of witches, where the latter appear as victims, as well as in Jean Amery's analysis of torture and his idea of the rehabilitation of the ressentiment. The line of rebellion leading from the words of Job's wife to the unprecedented forms of violence of power provoked by the fear of this rebellion leads to the understanding of evil not as religious (opposing good), but as a political phenomenon of the modern world, manifested in excessive violence against the powerless victim.

The Challenges of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Leadership in the Restoration of Peace and Stability in Ethiopia

The war in Ethiopia is ongoing, causing immense bloodshed, destruction of infrastructure and displacement of people. Communities involved in war that experience gross violations of human rights and excessive violence are likely to experience long-term trauma and deep psychological consequences. Religious leaders could support conflict-affected communities by facilitating peacebuilding activities and trauma-healing. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), as a country-wide and prominent religious institution, would be in position to play such a role had it made efforts to promote dialogue and peace at the peak of the conflict and openly condemned the violence in Tigray. Instead, the inactivity of the Church leadership resulted in the Diocese in Tigray declaring its separation from the EOTC. The current paper seeks to examine the challenges that the Church leadership faces in encouraging dialogue and reconciliation in the country given the rifts it has experienced within. It also explores the ability of the Church leadership to influence state actors to make peace and to rehumanise those dehumanised by the politics of war.

The Batman and the redemption of first responders: The culmination of a rhetoric of rescue during COVID-19, Trump and protest

The timing of Matt Reeves’s The Batman (2022) situated the film as a symbol of and response to the social troubles that resulted from the political unrest in 2020 and 2021, presenting solution-driven rhetoric amidst the numerous public crises in American discourse and identity. Captured and represented in his opening prologue speech in juxtaposition to his rhetorical culmination speech, Batman’s orations mirror his own arc and the politically prescribed reawakening of confidence in political figures and institutions. Paralleling his addresses, the evolution of Batman’s excessive violence when he initially works under the identity of ‘Vengeance’, compared to his subsequent performance as a first responder at the end of the film, serves as a rhetoric of redemption for first responders. Multiple scenes focus on Batman’s learning to recognize humans’ need for compassion as he becomes a student of social progress. Working as a unifying symbol of a diverse leader, Gotham’s newly elected mayor, Bella Reál, simultaneously offers a vision for transitioning away from leaders associated with racist and sexist discourse. With Batman’s rhetorical culmination and transformation into an emergency rescuer, The Batman serves as unifying verbal and visual discourse in response to contemporary political unrest.

Aggression Caused by Anxiety in Smokers and Non Smokers

Abnormally high or low anxiety levels are examples of general emotional regulation disturbances that are prone to contributing to excessive aggression and violence. This shows that the neurochemical mechanisms and brain circuits controlling anxiety and aggression may overlap. While numerous studies have linked smoking cigarettes to an increase in anxiety symptoms or disorders, early exposures may predispose a person to having stronger anxiety reactions in the future. This study hypothesizes that smokers will exhibit higher levels of aggression compared to non-smokers (Hypothesis 1). Additionally, it is predicted that smokers will experience higher levels of anxiety relative to non-smokers (Hypothesis 2). Furthermore, it is anticipated that a significant positive correlation will be observed between aggression and anxiety in both smokers and non-smokers (Hypothesis 3). These hypotheses are formulated based on existing literature suggesting a potential link between smoking, anxiety, and aggression, and aim to investigate the relationship between these variables in both smoking and non-smoking populations. The results of the study indicate significant differences in anxiety levels between smokers and non-smokers, with smokers exhibiting higher levels of anxiety. Additionally, there was no significant difference in the levels of aggression between smokers and non-smokers. However, the correlation analysis revealed significant and positive associations between aggression and anxiety in both groups, supporting the initial hypotheses and suggesting a link between anxiety and aggression irrespective of smoking status.

"Caught in the crossfire" - women veterans' testimonies regarding excessively violent acts committed in combat zones.

As women in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are increasingly placed in supportive and combat roles in active war zones, they routinely encounter and participate in violent acts. This study focusses on the centrality of gendered inequality and oppression as a factor that shapes not only women's experience in the military but also their responses in cases of excessive violence. The goal of this study was to explore the ways women veterans of combat or combat-support units conceptualize their stance regarding violent acts which they either committed or witnessed in war zones. Using a qualitative approach, we analyzed the retrospective testimonies of 58 Israeli women veterans from the archives of an NGO that documents veteran combatants exposure to excessive violence. Most women explained their violent acts as inherent to the military system and culture, which in our analysis was categorized as examples of either internalized gender oppression or as identification with the aggressor. A smaller number of women described their attempts to protest, as they took a moral stance rooted in a feminine perspective. The three explanations revealed through the analysis of the testimonies reflect the inner tension experienced by many women in the military, as they navigate between two extreme positions, either as victims of male dominance, or as aggressors that are part of a powerful military system. In this study, gendered inequality provides a framework for analyzing the data. Thus, this study contributes to the theoretical knowledge and methodological approaches concerning violent situations in combat areas, focusing on the various ways in which women veterans subjectively and retroactively conceptualize their participation in and responses to violent acts.

Public perceptions of justification in the deadly police shootings of black men: a content analysis of social media posts in 2016 and 2020

The proliferation of information technologies has revolutionized how people around the world consume news. By 2021, an estimated 8.6 billion mobile subscriptions existed worldwide. In the United States, a majority (84%) of Americans access their news digitally. On social media platforms, Facebook is the most used network for obtaining news. The three major news sources in the United States, CNN, Fox News, and MSNC, have a strong presence on Facebook. The current study analyzes public comments posted on Facebook involving the deadly police shootings of four Black men (i.e., Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Jonathan Price, Rayshard Brooks) to identify reactions at two points in time. Our work centers on public comments to these posts, not the posts themselves. Using a summative qualitative analysis, we analyzed the first 20 Facebook comments from CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC that are listed as most relevant (e.g., highest number of likes, reactions, replies) to the most recently posted news story regarding the incident. This resulted in a sample size of 223 posts. Public comments were categorized as justifying the killing, perceiving the killing as not justified, or expressing neutrality as to whether the killing was justified or not. We found that most comments, regardless of time period, did not engage in victim-blaming. Overall, the majority (N = 139 or 62%) of all comments perceived these deadly police shootings as not justified. Most (54%) posts on Fox News justified this violence, while the majority of posts on CNN or MSNBC felt the police had used excessive violence. There were more negative comments of Black men and victim-blaming after the Trump presidency (in 2020) than in 2016 (before Trump took office), which may be related to the racial rhetoric of the times.

Bodies of evidence: The ‘Excited Delirium Syndrome’ and the epistemology of cause-of-death inquiry

“Excited Delirium Syndrome” (ExDS) is a controversial diagnosis. The supposed syndrome is sometimes considered to be a potential cause of death. However, it has been argued that its sole purpose is to cover up excessive police violence because it is mainly used to explain deaths of individuals in custody. In this paper, we examine the epistemic conditions giving rise to the controversial diagnosis by discussing the relation between causal hypotheses, evidence, and data in forensic medicine. We argue that the practitioners’ social context affects causal inquiry through background assumptions that enter inquiry at multiple stages. This analysis serves to better understand the wide usage of the controversial diagnosis of ExDS.

Unplayable: Why Video Games Can’t and Won’t Be Played

This article argues that unplayability must be a considered component of game analysis and further discussed in new media studies. The concept that games cannot be or should not be played does not limit game analysis. On the contrary, the “unplayable aspect” of a particular game or genre of games is what must be investigated. This essay hopes to expand upon why new media such as video games are becoming inaccessible by using Nicholas Baer et al.’s Unwatchable to discuss a range of unplayable games for common reasons such as: (1) excessive violence, (2) sexual violence, and (3) preservation issues.

A Criminological Perspective on the Sexual Victimization of Older Adults.

This review presents recent research on the sexual abuse of older adults and examines this phenomenon from a criminological perspective. Much of the previous work has neglected to consider the entirety of the crime-commission process. Therefore, the work highlighted in this review showcases important information regarding the individual who committed the crime, the victim, and the criminal event as a whole. Comparative studies suggest that the motivations of people who commit sexually victimize older adults are vast and can include those that are sexually and anger motivated, while the victims present with unique vulnerabilities, such as disabilities and spending most of their time at home, that make them more susceptible to excessive violence. People who commit sexual abuse against older adults are a heterogenous group, and the context of victim vulnerabilities is key to understanding why they are targeted. Specific prevention and investigative practices can be formed to better address this crime and protect older adults from future victimization.

Media and the Impact on Hetero Normative Narratives of Children

Media has a profound influence on the narratives children construct about the world around them and their lived experience. Children develop a perception of the world and its working as well as their future lives and roles in society based on media exposure. One major effect of media on children has been in quite evident and obvious heteronormative narratives. Heteronormativity has been discussed in the west in relation to gender roles and stereotyping. However, in the Indian context, heteronormativity extends itself into the over exaggerated narratives children develop imagining excessive machismo, violence and aggression as accepted ways of life. The other angle of hetero normativity relevant in India is fantasy and stories targeting children of all ages leading to the development of unrealistic expectations, flawed body image and instant gratification. This article describes various instances and examples of the impact of media on children’s lives and development of personality.

Futures past and present: history, architecture and dystopia in Brazil (1985) and the Hunger Games series (2012-15)

ABSTRACT This article examines the temporality of recent science fiction films, specifically the ways in which architectural histories are used to imagine and characterise dystopias of the future. Drawing on the writing of Fredric Jameson and particularly on François Hartog’s analysis of ‘presentism’ in historical discourse, the article proposes that the dystopias shown in many recent science fiction films provide visions of the future which have been decoupled from modernist notions of historical progress. This argument is developed through analysis of the built environments of Brazil (1985) and the Hunger Games series (2012–15). In the former, historicising and modernist architecture are combined to create a dysfunctional, highly bureaucratic dystopia from which escape is impossible. In the latter films, monumental classical forms are the dominant architectural element in a dystopia marked by excessive state violence and surveillance. The postmodern housing project Les Espaces d’Abraxas, designed by Ricardo Bofill, features in both Brazil and the final Hunger Games film, providing common ground for their repudiation of utopian modernist design. The strong presence of architectures from the past in science fiction films is thus more than pastiche; instead, it establishes a temporality in which aspects of the past continue to haunt and encroach on present-day notions of the future.

Southeast Asian Shapeshifters in the age of streaming: minor transnationalism, horror and reimagining MUBI in Malaysia

ABSTRACT In Malaysia, the re-emergence of local horror films at the start of the twenty-first century after nearly 30 years of absence coincided with the rise of a new wave of digital filmmaking. Since then, digital streaming platforms have proliferated as new circulatory routes for engaged, political and independent local films and audiovisual works, being less stringent than the Malaysian mainstream, state-controlled film and media landscape. Streaming platforms appear to be more suited for hosting horror, since this genre is often targeted by censorship due to excessive violence, explicit images and emphasis on evil. Notably, ‘Southeast Asian horror’ has emerged as one of the key curating and marketing strategies for the global arthouse streaming service MUBI in Southeast Asia. Through an analysis of global, regional and local streaming platforms with a particular focus on MUBI’s programming, alongside interviews with Malaysian film industry practitioners, this article explores how digital streaming services forge new circulatory routes for Southeast Asian cultural works and prompt new forms of ‘minor transnationalism.

The Ethics of Animal Excess: Violence and Bataillean Vigilance in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs

ABSTRACT: This essay offers a different reading of the ethical imagination in Ian McEwan's fiction from that of human responsibility towards otherness propounded by Emmanuel Levinas. Long regarded as a natural philosophical interlocutor to McEwan, Levinas's concepts of alterity and the transcendence of the other seem to crystallize intersubjective encounters in McEwan's fiction and promote an ethical attitude of peaceable relations between human beings who do not negate the primordiality of the other's presence. I suggest certain difficulties with an unqualified adoption of a Levinasian ethical approach, centered around contradictions inherent in Levinas's qualifications of otherness which negate its radical impact on a coherent account of subjectivity. These objections will allow me to turn to an ethics of transgression and loss as set out by Georges Bataille. Bataille's ideas about excess sets up a dialectical thinking about limits and their fracture which enables an alternative reading of ethics and narrative structure in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs . I demonstrate how Bataille offers a more compelling reading of otherness and the eccentric nature of the ethical self than Levinas, and how this reading is enacted in McEwan's handling of narrative structure and metafictional technique in the novel, stringing together a powerful reimagining of responsibility and political vision in the aftermath of excessive violence.

Reimagining Macbeth in Africa and the Persistence of Primitivism

Abstract: This essay examines the relationship between “Africa” and “Shakespeare,” two powerful cultural constructs that hold particular ideological traction in contemporary global culture in the aftermath of colonialism. Attempts to “Africanize” Shakespeare may seem well-aligned with the imperative to decolonize knowledge and culture. However, invocations of “Africa” on international stages all too often rely on suggestions of primitivism and reproduce the age-old association of Africa with supposed barbarism or beastliness, inherited from antiquity and absorbed into the cultural myths against which notions of “Englishness” took hold. The essay considers how contemporary theater-making might reckon with these histories and with their lingering influence on public culture today, arguing that the conjuring of an “Africa” that is especially amenable to the violent excesses in evidence in Macbeth may reinforce simplistic readings of history and perpetuate racist teleologies. The essay examines a number of adaptations of Macbeth , some not widely known, others already familiar within Shakespeare studies, such as Welcome Msomi’s uMabatha, the Zulu Macbeth (1970), the so-called “Voodoo Macbeth ” directed by Orson Welles for the Federal Theater Project (New York, 1936), and Brett Bailey’s adaptation of Verdi’s operatic Macbeth set within a failing contemporary African state (2014). More nuanced representations of African cultural legacies and political histories emerge through innovative modes of storytelling, evident in two more recent productions: the short film In iRedu directed by Abiola Sobo (2013), and the 2021 production of Macbeth at the Joburg Theatre in South Africa, which drew on active, “actor-centric” modes of interpretation and multilingual innovations. Theater practice is well equipped to engage African worlds as sources of influence and inspiration, without resorting to the pejorative and unimaginative discourses of primitivism that have persisted well past the independence movements of the twentieth century.