Structural Violence Research Articles

POBREZA ESTRUTURAL-URBANA NO SÉCULO XXI

This article presents a theoretical reflection on interpretations of poverty, principally contemporary urban poverty, inspired by the works of Milton Santos. It is based on Geographical critical theory and other potential dialogues that contextualize and analyze poverty, understood here as the result of structural violence in territorial formation and Brazilian metropolises. It is concluded that poverty is structural-urban and can inform a qualitative debate (not only quantitative) on the lack of human dignity seeking to recognize the legitimacy of existence in places. Keywords: Violence, Urban Poverty, Metropolises, Socio-spatial Formation.

From “Big White” army to White Paper Protests: China’s gendered pandemic war and feminist interventions

ABSTRACT In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many nation-states adopted militarized measures for rapid containment. China notably implemented extreme and enduring war-like procedures. This study aims to explore the implications of securitizing the pandemic through a feminist lens and suggest ethical and equitable strategies for understanding emergencies and coping with future crises. Employing discourse-based online ethnography, it analyzes social dynamics in China’s “pandemic war,” examining how gender and (in)security are co-constructed and the role of feminist activism within an authoritarian context. This article argues that framing the pandemic as war reinforces a masculinist stance of dominance, prioritizing state stability over human rights and security. State-centric securitization perpetuates state authority, gendered social hierarchies, and structural violence. The exclusionary nature of this approach created new avenues for feminist activism, both online and offline, advocating for marginalized groups, raising social and gender awareness, challenging state narratives, and fostering collective resistance. Drawing lessons from Chinese feminist initiatives during COVID-19, this study calls for alternative crisis responses focused on care, equity, ethics, and collaboration.

Breaking the cycle: Presenting insights and strategies to overcome violent conflicts hindering social cohesion and progress in South African communities

ABSTRACT This study addresses the pervasive issue of violent conflicts that undermine social cohesion and hinder progress within South African communities. Thus, the study explores the root causes and contributing factors of these conflicts to provide a foundation for developing effective, evidence-based intervention strategies. The investigation revealed five critical themes: (1) community awareness and perceptions of safety, (2) communication and information to ensure safety, (3) causes of violent conflicts in South Africa, (4) community engagement and membership influence and (5) Five Year/third-quarter 2019/2023 Crime Statistics. These themes underscore the complexity of violent conflicts in post-apartheid South Africa, where the persistence of a violent culture, pervasive corruption, and connections between criminal syndicates and government officials exacerbate the situation. The methodology used is desktop research that combined critical review of literature, reports and discussions of identified themes. The study is centred around the concept of Conflict Transformation, which plays a crucial role in fostering relationships and facilitating reconciliation processes in society. This includes grassroots initiatives and the participation of leaders at different levels. The study concludes that that violent conflicts can be mitigated through informed actions and strategic interventions. With these insights, this study offers recommendations as a framework for policymakers and practitioners to develop targeted measures aimed at fostering a safer, more cohesive society. The goal is to break the cycle of violent conflicts to pave the way for sustainable social progress in South African communities.

Structural violence and policy outcomes of Lagos State Health Insurance Scheme in selected ministries, Lagos State

The decentralization of the NHIS’s implementation to states intended to hasten progress towards universal health coverage, has not effectively addressed healthcare disparities, particularly in Lagos State. The implementation of the Lagos State Health Insurance Scheme appears to perpetuate structural violence, evident in increased out-of-pocket expenses, discrimination based on insurance type, and substandard healthcare delivery. The study therefore examined how structural violence has affected the policy outcomes of the Lagos State Health Insurance Scheme, with a specific emphasis on junior officers in grade level 01–07 in five selected ministries situated within Lagos State. Both primary and secondary data were collected using questionnaire, interview and literature search. Data gathered were analysed statistically and thematically. The findings of the study indicate that the policy outcome of the scheme has been adversely affected by structural violence, resulting in dissatisfaction, compensation claims for unresolved health issues and a shift in health insurance providers among enrolled junior officers.

Surviving Exile. Queer Displaced People’s Lived Experiences of Aid, Risks and Coping in Kakuma

This paper examines the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ displaced individuals in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya. Drawing on situated knowledge and relational agency, it delves into how queer people experience the humanitarian-aid system on-site, what risks they encounter, and how they exert agency to cope with the prevalent challenges of day to day life. Findings reveal that, in a country context where same-sex relations are illegalized and queer people criminalized, those displaced face heightened risks. They are confronted with the heteronormative paradigms inherent to the humanitarian-aid system, ones resulting in their neglect and denied access to much-needed assistance and protection. Structural and physical violence such as discrimination, exclusion, harassment and threats of murder exacerbate unrelenting fears and tangible risks in the camp. To navigate these challenges, they employ diverse individual and especially collective coping strategies, creating safe spaces for mutual support, exchange and hope.

Capture, commodify, kill: Legitimized harms and industrial meatpacking in the united states

AbstractSlaughtering and processing animals on an industrial scale are complicated activities that are both highly prominent in the food system and intentionally concealed from the public. The structural violence enacted within this industry deserves attention as a direct form of state-corporate harm. To this end, this paper invokes Tombs and Whyte’s imaginaries of corporate crime to understand what they might call the” ceaseless repetition” through which harms against workers, animals, and the environment in the meatpacking industry are enacted. From this application in the context of a Marxian analysis of primitive accumulation, we have determined the importance of capital’s ability to capture, commodify, and kill (CCK) – concepts we offer together as a heuristic device to highlight the types of harm done to labor, animals, and land, and to explain how these harms are accomplished. Drawing on the copious literature on meatpacking, as well as our own direct observations of the industry, this paper emphasizes the role of food systems for white-collar and corporate crime specialists interested in policy and social change.

Modes of existence, capitalism, and lived socio-ecological struggles: Whither actor-network theory in a world in crisis?

In response to the forum article ‘What Next for Actor-Network Theory?’, this piece takes up the suggestion that a fruitful way forward for actor-network theory (ANT) would be to engage with ideas ‘originating from elsewhere’, such as from other theoretical traditions. Examining this, I suggest that the version of ANT brought into such dialogue matters, and that – contrary to the suggestion of the forum article – Latour's late ‘modes of existence’ project is not the most conducive for this purpose. I then assess the prospects for a productive cross-fertilisation between a less meta-ontological articulation of ANT and other theoretical repertoires, identifying an obstacle to this in the tendency of ANT to use other traditions of social thought largely as a foil against which to define itself, which mitigates against proper engagement with the strengths of those traditions. Taking a lead from the examples discussed in the forum article, I flesh this out by highlighting some of the shortcomings of ANT, relative to political ecology for instance, as a way of understanding socio-ecological relations and conflicts, in part because of its habitual disdain for certain sorts of ‘grand abstractions’, in particular, ‘capitalism’. I argue conversely that such abstractions not only speak to the lived realities of historically embedded structural violence and dispossession at the heart of socio-ecological struggles, but are crucial for situating people's lives in the context of wider relations and processes, something one might well deem a key purpose of sociology.

The Responsibility for Peace (R4P): Understanding the study of peace from a global justice and development perspective.

This article introduces a new conceptualisation of the relationship between global distributive justice, development, and the study of peace, which we label the Responsibility for Peace (R4P). In doing so, the article examines the notion of positive peace within peace studies, its relation to arguments within global distributive justice, and to what degree this important relationship is recognised in the primary international framework to prevent and protect populations from mass atrocity crimes, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). The article argues that despite growing recognition about the links between peace and development within both R2P and global justice discussions, it remains insufficient in terms of positive peace, thus requiring a new heuristic. In response, we argue that global justice demands refocused moral commitments to jus ante bellum (establishing global justice before war) and that this necessitates greater focus on the study of positive peace mechanisms, the identification and reform of structural injustices (against structural violence), and a retooled emphasis on human-centred development that can transcend existing legacies. In other words, we need to better focus on causes and not symptoms. It is this triangulation that we label the Responsibility for Peace (R4P), which should operate both prior to, and independently of, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

Prophecy redux: a critique of Leanne Simpson’s concept of autogenocide

ABSTRACT This article examines the thought of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson as a case study in Indigenous decolonial theory. Primarily by engaging with Simpson’s approach in As We Have Always Done, it develops a critique of the concept of ‘autogenocide’. It argues that the liberatory potential of grounded normativity is undercut by Simpson’s juxtaposition of resistance with the immediate threat of self-destruction. This is signalled by the failure to exist in an adequately Indigenous ontological domain. The result arguably summons myths about Indigenous disappearance – that Indigenous peoples are a ‘dying race’ responsible for their own demise, and thus may read as injurious to Indigenous peoples who defy the markers of indigeneity outlined by Simpson in her Radical Resurgence Project. This critique is framed with reference to biopolitics, resilience, and Indigenous suicide. Transposing autogenocide to the Indigenous suicide crisis in Canada demands that the utility of the concept be evaluated in terms of another anti-colonial imaginary, where death by suicide exposes the structural violence of settler colonialism. It further contends that Critical Indigenous Studies is uniquely charged with confronting the intellectual, political, and philosophical consequences produced by the autogenocide concept. Most importantly, the alternative forms of essentialism and erasure that it heralds.

Using youth participatory action research to explore the impacts of structural violence on LGBTQIA + youth health.

Queerphobia is defined as society's negative attitude towards LGBTQIA + people, translating into structures that marginalise LGBTQIA + people and contribute to health inequities that cause real harm and can be understood as structural violence. The purpose of this article is to explore what historically marginalised youth in a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project characterise as the big picture issues affecting the lives of LGBTQIA + youth. We used participatory arts-based methods to conduct community and identity building, define research questions and photo prompts, conduct data collection, engage in group thematic analysis, and make recommendations at the state policy level. We also conducted individual semi-structured interviews with participants. Our findings can be grouped into three main themes: LGBTQIA + youth may feel it is safer to remain closeted; queerphobia perpetuates housing instability; and queerphobia functions as a structural barrier to social services. Youth also developed state level policy recommendations to address the structural issues causing harm to LGBTQIA + youth health. Recommendations included increasing access to affordable housing and LGBTQIA + inclusive foster and group homes, and advocating for government-funded LGBTQIA + specific healthcare practices for LGBTQIA + youth. More youth-driven data are needed that centre those directly impacted by structural violence and associated health outcomes.

Effects of climate change on migration in Latin America and Caribbean: a scoping review

Climate change-induced natural disasters such as hurricanes, landslides, forest fires, and changes in precipitation directly affect rural sectors that depend on field production and other dimensions of everyday life. This generates the mobilization of people from their homes to safer places within the same country or across borders. There is a lack of information on the impacts of climate change on environmental migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). This scoping review aims to describe the scientific evidence of the health effects of climate change on migrant in LAC. The review was conducted using databases from PubMed, Web of Science (WoS), and Google Scholar in English, Spanish and Portuguese. After screening the title, abstract, and full text of identified hits (n = 726), 31 records were finally included. Evidence indicates that climate change relates to health and healthcare, psychosocial and infrastructure dimensions among migrants in LAC. Health effects refer to limited access to healthcare, underdiagnosis, increased susceptibility to diseases and mental health conditions like stress and anxiety. Psychosocial dimensions refer to a heightened risk of sexual and gender-based violence, social marginalization, family separation, and loss of identity and culture. Infrastructure refers to environmental degradation and agricultural and urban infrastructure destruction. Multiple adaptations to these conditions are described among migrant populations in the region. Recommendations for improvements are presented. This scoping review suggests climate change’s significant health, psychosocial, and infrastructural associations with migrants in Latin America.

Echoes of violence: experiences of Palestinian Arab students in Israeli academia during the violent events of May 2021

AbstractThis paper investigates the challenges faced by Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (PAI) who are students in Israeli higher education institutions amidst periods of national turbulence and violence, particularly focusing on the violent events of May 2021. Using interviews with students, academics, and members of civil society organisations, the paper puts forth a constructivist grounded theory model that charts the impact of the violent events of May 2021 on PAI students. It reveals that students’ experiences of violence, in various forms, give rise to a host of emotional, social, and political processes that heighten their awareness of the structural violence of the broader Israeli-Palestinian struggle. In response, PAI students withdraw both physically and mentally from their campuses and concurrently mobilise within their communities to address unmet needs neglected by official authorities. The perceptions of PAI students regarding their institutions’ responses to political issues are marked by intense cynicism—a sentiment that is mitigated by individual supportive initiatives by faculty members. Based on the findings, the paper argues that periods of political escalation are not to be viewed as fleeting events that heighten emotions but rather as critical junctures where identities and perceptions are formed, leaving an impact that lasts long after the immediate turbulence subsides.

The Journey of a Living Statue: Structural Violence and a Honduran Migrant Woman’s Pathway Toward Asylum and Wellbeing

Approximately half of the world’s displaced migrant population are women, yet gender-specific analyses are often lacking. Such analyses are crucial for understanding migrant women’s unique experiences and informing policies that address their health and broader needs. This paper integrates the concept of structural violence with person-centered ethnography to examine women’s physical and mental health in contexts of displacement and migration. Using the triple trauma framework, we offer a holistic, temporal-spatial analysis of the health experiences and exposures faced by asylum-seeking women across three stages: places of origin, travel, and destination. Through the representative case of Anahi, a Honduran woman who fled to the US with her family in 2019, we identify four key themes: the persistence of structural violence and its constraints on health decisions and outcomes, the losses and suffering associated with women’s triple roles, the harms of racism and xenophobia, and the health implications of inadequate information on asylum and immigration procedures. We conclude with policy recommendations to reduce health inequities among migrant women. This study advances understanding by providing a comprehensive, gendered analysis of the structural forces shaping health outcomes for migrant women, offering insights that extend beyond a narrow focus on reproductive issues to address their physical, mental, and social well-being.

PREVENTING AND COMBATING BULLYING: AN ANALYSIS OF HELP TEAMS

Bullying is one of the biggest challenges faced by schools, deeply impacting students' emotional health and development. Recognized as a form of systematic violence by the World Health Organization (WHO), bullying has serious consequences, ranging from anxiety and social withdrawal to lasting psychological problems. In Brazil, the National School Health Survey (PENSE, 2022) reveals that one in five young people engages in bullying. This study aims to discuss strategies to prevent and combat bullying, focusing on the implementation of Help Teams, a form of youth leadership that promotes healthy coexistence and reduces violence. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach, based on a literature review and analysis of documentary and legislative data, including studies by Tognetta (2022), Loch et al. (2020), and Allen and Kern (2017). The results indicate that Help Teams are an effective strategy to improve school climate and student well-being, providing a reduction in cases of bullying. However, implementation faces challenges, such as a lack of resources and the need for ongoing training for educators. The study concludes that, for schools to become spaces for welcoming and preventing conflicts, a collective effort from the school community, institutional support and well-implemented public policies are necessary, with youth leadership as a fundamental tool.

The Symbolization of Violence Aesthetic and Cultural Integration in One Piece: A Case Study of the Thriller Bark Chapter

Postmodernism in the 20th century gradually developed "violence" into an artistic aesthetic, and due to different understandings of "violence" in various countries, it has spawned a variety of branches. In order to disseminate its works to audiences from different cultural backgrounds, One Piece combines Japanese indigenous violence aesthetics with the violent cultures of various cultures, making it a successful example of cross-cultural communication on a global scale. To understand the process of symbolic re-encoding of Japanese native violence aesthetics and British violence aesthetics in One Piece, as well as the way in which values are integrated, this study selects the Thriller Bark Chapter (episodes 337 to 380) in One Piece as a case for analysis. The study extracts references to British culture and Japanese native culture within the text as "cultural symbols," a unit of visual analysis, and further divides them into four major categories: natural symbols, artificial symbols, character symbols, and language symbols. Statistical analysis reveals that, due to the close relationship between British horror violence culture and the development of its Gothic literature, the author has incorporated a large number of Gothic cultural symbols in the Thriller Bark Chapter. Meanwhile, the work consistently upholds the fundamental principles of Japanese native culture while also revitalizing its own cultural identity.

The sacrificed lives of the caring class: crises of social reproduction, unequal Europe, and modern forms of slavery

AbstractThere have been plenty of interpretations regarding the meaning and function of sacrifice within the discipline of anthropology. Going beyond sacrifice as a ritual and exploring a wide range of its manifestations and functions as contemporary cultural practices, discourses, and underlying logics, we reveal its role in the social organization of social care provision within the framework of neoliberal capitalism. Our analysis supports the theory that sacrifice can have the function of social control, and of preserving hierarchies. The forgoing of a minority of migrant domestic workers to provide intensive social care becomes the (no) solution to the ongoing care crisis. It thus becomes the way to hide structural violence and dilute responsibilities for society, which benefits from the servile conditions under which the labour is performed. The ethnographic material (observations, informal conversations, and interviews) that is part of our analysis originated from fieldwork in Castellón de la Plana, Spain (2018/19). This analysis, however, goes beyond that case, being valid for reflecting on the position of care for elderly and dependent people in our societies, care in general, the current global trend in social care provision, and the new social reproduction regime in which sacrificial logics play an increasing role.

BYSTANDERS, JEWS, AND HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION

ABSTRACTThis article revisits the vast historiography on everyday life in Vichy France to address the moral questions and historical claims implicit in the bystander category. It addresses how historians conceive the relationship between bystanders and Jews, arguing that they implicitly erase the structural violence between the two groups by reproducing the liberal ethics implicit in the slogan “never again” in their own method—and in spite of their commitment to a boundary between history and memory. Drawing on the insights of postcolonial and political theory, it suggests that the category, if rethought, might account for popular complicity in genocidal violence.

Syndemic Connections: Overdose Death Crisis, Gender-Based Violence and COVID-19

This article will use syndemic theory to identify and analyze overlapping health and social conditions, focusing specifically on how gender-based violence is systemically interconnected with contemporary public health issues. The overdose death crisis that continues to afflict Canadian populations is not an isolated health issue. Across Canada, it is intertwined with mental health, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 and structural violence—the chronic and systemic disadvantages affecting those living in poverty and oppressive circumstances. Opioid use is an often-avoidant coping strategy for many experiencing the effects of trauma, relentless fear, pain, ill health and social exclusion. In particular, Indigenous and non-Indigenous women’s experiences with opioid addiction are entangled with encounters with gender based-violence, poverty and chronic ailments within structurally imposed processes and stressors shaped by a history of colonialism, ruptured lifeways and Western ways of knowing and doing, leading to disproportionate harms and occurrences of illness. While biomedical models of comorbidity and mortality approach substance misuse, gender-based violence and major infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 as distinct yet compounding realities, this article argues that these conditions are synergistically interrelated via the critical/reflexive lens of syndemic frameworks. Through secondary research using academic, media and policy sources from the past decade in Canada, complemented by prior ethnographic research, the synergistic connections among opioid addiction, gender-based violence and the effects of the COVID pandemic on diverse women will be shown to be driven by socio-structural determinants of health including poverty, intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism and Western optics. Together, they embody a contemporary Canadian syndemic necessitating coordinated responses.

Structural violence and the perpetuation of women's poverty: exploring the issue of child maintenance in South Africa

ABSTRACT Child maintenance is not just a fundamental right but a crucial human need, essential for meeting the basic requirements of children. It also plays a vital role in preventing single mothers from carrying the sole burden of parenthood, which can exacerbate poverty and marginalisation. Against this backdrop, this study examines how social systems and institutions perpetuate structural violence, disproportionately impacting women. Specifically focusing on child maintenance in East London, South Africa, this research sheds light on how existing structures may compound the difficulties encountered by single mothers in securing financial support for their children. The research objective is to understand how structural violence contributes to women's poverty in child maintenance cases. Employing an exploratory qualitative design with a purposive sample of 54 participants, the study reveals that women already facing structural inequalities are most affected by a lack of child support. This forces them to rely on their limited income to raise their children, pushing them further into poverty.

“Violence is Everywhere.” How Semi-Permeable Borders Facilitate Transnational Perpetration of Structural, Symbolic and Interpersonal Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

This article explores forced migrant women’s transnational experiences of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), emphasizing that dynamic forms of violence travel with women across international borders. Through qualitative interviews with Arabic-speaking forced migrant women who have experienced SGBV, we examine how the selective permeability of international borders facilitates the perpetration of SGBV. Our analysis identified SGBV was perpetrated against participants across a range of forced migration settings. Structural and symbolic violence also persisted across international borders, creating additional barriers to accessing formal support services. The findings indicate that international borders remain permeable to diverse forms of structural, symbolic and interpersonal SGBV.