Understanding Of Violence Research Articles

Variations in media framing of movements in China, France, and the U.S.: An intersectional approach.

Current literature often links contentious protests with media hostility, showing that news outlets typically portray protests involving disruption or violence in a negative light. Contesting this literature, this work introduces an intersectional approach-focusing on geopolitics, protest goals and actions-to theorize divergences in the media framing of protests that entail violence. To illustrate these divergences, we use mixed methods-network analysis and content analysis-to examine an original dataset on U.S. media coverage of three large movements in different countries. These movements share similarities in their anti-status quo goals and contentious actions but differ in geopolitical locations: one taking place in the U.S., the second in a U.S. ally country, and the third in a non-ally country. As the first to apply network analysis in movement-media studies, this comparative study contributes to a systematic examination of media framing variations both within and across social movements. This work also complicates our understanding of violence and media representation by introducing a theoretically-informed approach that considers multiple factors simultaneously.

Explaining strategic disinterment: Forensics and the reconstruction of the missing in Cyprus

The paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘strategic disinterment’ in Cyprus, namely the purposeful and selective destruction of primary graves and removal of remains of missing persons to unknown secondary burial sites. Our examination of why violent actors invest valuable resources to exhume victims from the original burial location, even when they no longer pose a security threat, has significant theoretical and methodological implications. First, it pushes the boundaries of our understanding of violence by challenging the assumption that violent actors target only the living. Second, it innovates methodologically by introducing the use of forensic data to explain the strategic logic of selective removal of remains of victims from original grave sites in Cyprus. By exploring the interplay between temporal, spatial, demographic, and political considerations and analysing variables that may explain strategic disinterment, we make informed inferences about the possible drivers of grave selection. We argue the decision of armed groups to engage in strategic disinterment in Cyprus was shaped by a set of two factors. On the one hand, they were ‘pushed’ by the degree of perceived accountability associated with specific graves that concealed incriminatory evidence of heinous crimes. On the other hand, their capacity to organize sophisticated operations, such as mass-scale reburials, was crucial. Only actors with the capacity and attentive to (international) accountability norms were likely to engage in strategic disinterment.

Coercive control: From Diké to Hygée, a judicial and health revolution

By reversing the questions and focusing on the perpetrator's behavior, the notion of coercive control revolutionizes the apprehension and understanding of violence within the family for all its members. This heuristic approach, which represents a genuine paradigm shift, has legal, semiological and diagnostic effects. It creates a new professional ecosystem that enables us to respond differently to two fundamental missions: caring and justice.

"I Can Feel It in My Spine": Indigenous Women's Embodied Experiences of Violence and Healing.

This article draws on the stories told by Indigenous women in the midwestern United States to explore embodied experiences of violence and how they conceptualize healing in the aftermath of violence. Two focus groups-conducted as talking circles-were completed with 16 Indigenous women. Findings highlight four salient themes: embodied impacts of violence; normalization of violence; (im)possibilities of healing; and strategies for healing. In particular, the women highlighted embodied practices like collective storytelling as a means of healing. This study deepens our understanding of violence against women by promoting Indigenous ways of knowing and uplifting the voices of Indigenous women.

Violent demonstrations in marginal territories and their place in politics: A case study in Lo Hermida, Santiago de Chile

This article aims to investigate violent demonstrations in marginal territories of Santiago de Chile and their political dimension, studying the territorial deployment of structural violence, transgressive protest actions, and subjectivation processes. These three dimensions tell us about the political, social, and territorial intertwining of violent demonstrations, based on Jacques Rancière's framework. We conducted a case study in Lo Hermida, a highly politicized self-constructed neighborhood born in the 1970s that is currently surrounded by transportation infrastructure and upscale urban developments. Using secondary sources, semi-structured interviews, and photo-elicitation with 14 residents of Lo Hermida, we show the way in which structural violence is experienced across the territory, how transgressive protest actions are carried out in violent demonstrations throughout it, and how processes of political subjectivation unfold from this. The conclusions emphasize the incorporation of the political-subjective dimension in the understanding of violence in marginal territories, highlighting its emergent characteristics in space.

(Mis)Representing Ethnicity in UK Government Statistics and Its Implications for Violence Inequalities

The question of how we measure, categorise, and represent ethnicity poses a growing challenge for identifying and addressing ethnic inequalities. Conceptual critiques and qualitative studies highlight the complexities and challenges of measuring ethnicity, yet there remains a lack of quantitative studies investigating the implications of these complexities for inequalities research. This paper addresses this gap by scrutinizing methodological processes and analysing the implications of measurement and categorisation in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), critiquing the UK’s standardised measurement of ethnicity in national survey data and government statistics. Based on our comparative quantitative analysis of standardised ethnicity categories and regional origins and our evaluation of the CSEW and census’ methodologies, we propose an alternative categorisation of ethnicity, focusing on the ‘Mixed’, ‘Asian’, and ‘Latinx/Hispanic’ ethnic groups. Using adjusted crosstabulations and logistic regression models, we found variations in ethnic patterns of violence based on standardised measures and our alternative recategorisation, particularly relating to the distinction between ‘Asian’ sub-groups, the recategorisation of ‘Mixed’ ethnicities, and the inclusion of ‘Latinx/Hispanic’ as a distinctive ethnic group. Our findings reveal valuable insights into the implications of ethnic categorisation for understanding violence inequalities, with significant implications for further policy and research areas.

The Doomsday Economy: Colonial Violence, Environmental Catastrophe, and Burning Tires in Palestine


 
 
 The article analyzes the Palestinian act of tire burning at the intersection of the following frameworks – colonial violence, racial capitalism, and environmental discourse. The analysis considers the many functions of Palestinian tire burning: capital accumulation, waste management, protestors’ protection, counter-violence, pollution redistribution, and spectacle production. This analysis leads to the argument that Palestinian tire burning takes part in a “Doomsday Economy.” The article promotes the concept of a “Doomsday Economy” as a frame for understanding violence toward Palestinians and the contemporary intent of tire burning. The Doomsday Economy is a violent economic structure that involves two interplaying processes: (a) the positioning of a discursive catastrophe in a deferred future by colonial powers in order to conceal the present violence and production of a daily doomsday for the oppressed; and (b) the oppressed’s acceleration of the future-doomsday’s arrival for all participants of this economy – through pollution and images – introducing doomsday as a present state.
 
 

Why Destroy a Synagogue? A Reflection on Hitler’s Metaphysical Antisemitism

Abstract This article explores the possible metaphysical aspects of Hitler’s antisemitism by asking a basic question: Why did the Nazis, if motivated solely or at least largely by racial hatred, attack and destroy Jewish religious sites, above all synagogues? The answer the article gives, a speculative one, is that Hitler’s antisemitism expresses a hatred of life and death that has deep roots in Western history, roots that can be traced most directly to the hatred of life and death expressed by Christianity and, specifically, to the hatred expressed by one of Christianity’s most hate-filled theologians, Martin Luther. Hence, the article offers a comparative interpretation of Hitler and Luther’s antisemitism in two main sections. A final section reflects on the difficulty of understanding antisemitism, hatred and violence and thus concludes with Primo Levi’s claim that in Auschwitz there is no answer, there is no why (Hier ist kein Warum).

Cognitive and social-cognitive factors as mediators of aggression using structural equation modeling

ABSTRACT Violence and aggression continue to be both public health and economic concerns. In an effort to better understand, predict, and prevent violence and aggression, a number of models have been proposed that include both static and dynamic risk factors and indicators. Despite research demonstrating links between cognitive and social-cognitive factors with violence and aggression, their role in understanding violence is still unclear. The current study developed a multi-faceted model of aggression including social-cognitive, cognitive, personality, and psychiatric factors. A community, male sample (N = 1,192) collected through Amazon’s Mturk responded to a series of self-report measures and a cognitive task. Utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM), we created a latent variable path analysis model predicting aggression. Several important paths were significant including from entity theory to aggression, mediated by hostile attribution bias, schizotypy to aggression, mediated by both hostile attribution bias and disinhibition, substance use to aggression mediated by disinhibition, and psychopathy to aggression directly. This model provides a framework for future research that focuses on process factors of violence and aggression, including social-cognitive and cognitive, that may eventually prove valuable for risk reduction.

"Children Are Like Vuvuzelas Always Ready to Blow": Exploring How to Engage Young Children in Violence Research.

Children's participation and inclusion in violence research, particularly in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) contexts, is scant and not well understood. To assess how young children can be engaged in violence research, 4- to 7-year-old children were recruited into our pilot study in a rural area of South Africa. Six interviewers, recruited from the community, were trained to complete cognitive interviews (n = 24), interviewer-administered questionnaires (n = 21), and qualitative interviews (n = 18) with young children. Three focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with interviewers. Findings from FGDs and assessment of interview performance highlighted that young children could feasibly and meaningfully appraise violence they experience and articulate their view in a research context. Art- and play-based approaches offered participants an easier and developmentally appropriate platform for communication, expression, and engagement, and asking directly about violence was acceptable. The ease with which children participated was determined both by their level of development and the sensitivity of the interviewers; thus, intensive training and mentorship were required over time to assist interviewers in understanding child development and mental health and increase recognition of these issues and their presentation. Interviewers critically engaged with personal values regarding children's rights and voice in research, reflecting that some of the stories were difficult to listen to. They were able to use and value novel methods to facilitate the ethical involvement of young children to yield rich data. Without young children's involvement and dynamic participation in violence research, the field will not have the evidence to build best practices, respond appropriately to the needs of this vulnerable population, and interrupt the intergenerational transmission of violence that develops in these formative years. Our study adds to the burgeoning evidence that young participants are vital to the research process and are valuable active contributors to understanding violence in LMICs.

‘Violence is all he knew, and it seemed to work’: using the power threat meaning framework to explore prison officers’ understandings of violence in Irish prisons

ABSTRACT In 2018 the Irish Prison Service (IPS) opened the National Violence Reduction Unit (NVRU), becoming home to all prisoners managed under the Violently Disruptive Prisoner (VDP) policy, who were repeatedly engaged in serious violence in prison. Embedded in the NVRU is a joint operational-psychological approach, aiming to understanding the violence of these prisoners, and work with them to reduce it. This study explored NVRU prison officers’ understandings of the origins, experiences and expressions of the violence of NVRU prisoners, through the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF). Prison officers (n = 13) participated in semi-structured interviews at two time-points: 6 months after the NVRU opening (n = 13), and 12 months after the NVRU opening (n = 11). From these aggregated transcripts (n = 24), 6 themes were identified: (1) power, (2) threat, (3) meaning, (4) threat response, (5) function of threat response, and (6) moderating factors. Prison officers confirmed many a priori elements of the existing provisional PTMF, whilst also contributing novel elements related to their subjective understandings of this specific cohort. These findings are interpreted in the context of existing empirical research. Implications for future research, and policy and practice within and beyond the NVRU, are suggested.

Gendering and Constructing Violence in Ellen McLaughlin's Ajax in Iraq

Objective: This study examines the reality of women soldiers’ violence in Ellen McLaughlin’s Ajax in Iraq and argues that women soldiers—like men—can be perpetrators of violence.
 Methods: The study is conducted in light of Judith Butler’s concept of performativity as theorized in her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990). In relation to Butler’s theorization, which assumes that gender is a social construct, the characters’ violent acts and behaviors are analyzed in order to explore men and women soldiers’ violence. 
 Results: The study shows that the behaviors of the female soldier in the play go beyond the binary narrative of gender performance as well as the social construction of violence. This portrayal of violent acts suggests that acts of violence are de-gendered and that both men and women can be both victims and perpetrators of violence.
 Conclusions: The study concludes that acts of violence of military women are re-gendered and de-constructed through women’s performance in the play. It also shows that women soldiers’ behaviors are affected by women’s cultural and social environments, a situation which indicates that the binary system of understanding violence fuels inequality between the genders.

Harnessing media as a site of change: locating public engagement with stories about violence against women in Australia

ABSTRACT Australian violence prevention policies have highlighted that media representations reinforce and challenge the public’s understanding of violence against women. Current primary prevention strategies have attempted to harness the media’s influence by focusing on improving the quality of news reportage and the working practice of professional journalists. These strategies focus explicitly on news media as the site of public engagement. However, violence against women is depicted and discussed in various popular media sites in Australia. This article seeks to explore changes in the modes and locations of contemporary media representations of violence against women. Drawing from a case study of Australian true crime podcasts, this article demonstrates how alternative media resources have become powerful new sites of public engagement with information and stories about violence against women. This paper argues that primary prevention strategies must accommodate these changing domains of understanding.

Art Practices in Modern Culture

The purpose of the article is to analyse modern creative practices in interaction with cultural values. The research methodology includes scientific methods: analytical, structural-functional, generalising; comparative analysis techniques to reveal the specifics of modern creative practices from the perspective of the formation of cultural values. The scientific novelty of the work is based on the analysis of modern artistic practices. Conclusions. It is noted that creative practices influence the educational process with the preservation, reproduction, and formation of cultural values. Artistic practices are a complex communicative process, a connection between a person’s worldview and the environment, means of expressiveness of the arts and everyday life and customs. The versatility of modern creativity is noted with the involvement of synthesised projects, which have more opportunities to attract recipients. The complexity in the relationships between personality education and the formation of cultural values is noted. It is supported by the facts of a change in ideals in modern creativity, reaching the dialectical level of the art of negation, art showing different sides of human existence. Project of the Czech National Ballet with the organisation «Consent» – the ballet “A Streetcar Named Desires” with the problem of violence, changing approaches to education according to the dominance of ethical norms and values of certain groups of youth: respect for oneself, the world around us, loved ones, partners and friends; treating another person as oneself. Ballet by D. Neumeier based on the psychological drama by W. Tennessee “A Streetcar Named Desire” as an example of modern creativity in understanding violence and trauma from it. The modern discourse of art about norms and rules, socio-political relations and cultural values is examined using the examples of the original sculpture by D. Czerny “ Sycophancy” (2003, Prague); artistic project of the Italian theatre troupe “Malatheatre” on the occasion of the celebration of the 452nd anniversary of the birth of the Italian artist Caravaggio in the Church of San Michele Arcangelo. All examples are paralleled by memory studies by psychologists: J. Miller, J. Santa, C. Jung. It is noted that art practices help young people understand cultural values with the accents of the present. Keywords: artistic practices in modern culture, cultural values, art history, musicology, baroque music, ballet, psychology of perception.

Why do mothers stay? Challenging attitudes in decision making about children at risk because of domestic violence

BackgroundThis article reports findings from research commenced in 2019. Stage one assessed the attitudes and beliefs of child protection practitioners towards domestic violence. Stage two considered the impact of combining Structured Decision Making (SDM - the standard assessment approach) with Response Based Practice (RBP - a contemporary approach to understanding violence), on child protection decisions. ObjectiveTo improve the child protection response to children who experience domestic violence. This article reports on stage three; considering the impact of practitioner attitudes and beliefs on child protection decisions and whether the combined assessment approach (SDM + RBP) moderated the impact of practitioner attitudes and beliefs. Participants and setting1041 child protection practitioners participated in the research while attending one of 17 practice conferences across New South Wales, Australia. MethodsAn innovative video vignette experiment with a between-subjects design was used, relying on professional actors to play the roles of practitioner and mother of the children reported. Participants watched a video interview of a safety assessment and completed a survey. ResultsPractitioner attitudes and beliefs were not significantly correlated with assessments about the children's safety; but attitudes did impact decisions about the likelihood of the children being brought into care. Attitudes and beliefs moderated the impact of misinformed attitudes, to some extent. ConclusionsThe research confirms the value of the combined SDM + RBP approach to guide practitioners to a more holistic understanding of domestic violence. It also confirms that assessment approaches are only ever as good as the beliefs and attitudes of the people who apply them.

Provoking Punches: Factors Influencing Perceived Violent Reactions to Negative Situations

Purpose: Violence among college students is an important area of research as this group is at an increased risk of both engaging in and being a victim of violence. As such, the current research aimed to examine factors that may influence violent tendencies among a sample of college students.
 Method: Data from 101 completed surveys were analyzed. Principal components factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha resulted in the creation of six independent variables (gun experience, weapons support, anger contagion, witness violence, violent community, and aggressive beliefs) and four dependent variables (competition for resources, social attacks, physical attacks, and unfair situations). OLS regression was used to estimate the impact of each variable on perceptions of reacting with violence to four negative situations.
 Results: Gun experience and violent community significantly predicted responding violently to both social and physical attacks, while gun support was only predictive of violence in competition for resources. Additionally, aggressive beliefs predicted perceptions of violent responses to physical attacks and in unfair situations. Finally, anger contagion was associated with students reporting an increased likelihood of responding violently to social attacks.
 Conclusions: While research shows the importance of understanding violence exposure and aggressive norms in creating and improving violence prevention programs and anti-violence strategies, the role that perceptions play is largely absent. Furthermore, this research supports the importance of implementing these programs and strategies among college students/young adults to potentially reduce violence and aggression within this age group.

“You Have Blood On Your Lips” — Experiencing and Articulating Animal-Related Violence in Veganism

This article outlines critical research perspectives on the human-animal relationship. It uses exemplary analyses of empirical data collected through qualitative interviews with vegans to shed light on how they perceive certain ways of treating animals as violent practices. The analysis in this article focuses on the functions and effects of language, not only in terms of its role in maintaining existing carnivorous structures and practices, but also in terms of dynamic processes and potentials for change. This approach presupposes a notion of structural and symbolic violence. Specifically, this study examines how the vegan research partners perceive, experience, and articulate carnivorous dietary and consumption practices as violence against so-called farm animals. The analysis shows that images are highly significant, namely in the context of figurative language, when talking about images and with regard to one’s own iconic imaginaries. The (linguistically co-determined) construction of closeness to and distance from the animal product offers important insights into the socio-cultural and psycho-social dimensions of an animal-related “vegan” understanding of violence and harm.

Varieties of Violence in Street Culture

ABSTRACT Violence is central to social life, especially for people at the margins of urban society. This article examines ethnographic data collected in Oslo among individuals who are involved in street life and crime. We propose the following typology for understanding violence in this population: respect-based violence, business violence, drunken violence, and family violence. We argue that from an emic perspective, these types are substantially different from one another and evoke varying moral evaluations. Violence that has to do with respect, business, or drinking tends to be tolerated, sometimes even celebrated, whereas family violence tends to be condemned. Violence is not a uniform phenomenon. It comes in different types and is experienced and made sense of differently across cultural contexts. These findings challenge a dominating trend in contemporary micro-sociology, spearheaded by Randall Collins, which focuses on identifying universal rules of violent situations at the expense of sensitivity to cultural variation.

‘I’ve lived and bred violence my whole life’: understanding violence in the Irish Prison Service through the lens of the power threat meaning framework

ABSTRACT In 2018 the Irish Prison Service (IPS) opened the National Violence Reduction Unit (NVRU), which became home to a small amount of prisoners managed under the Violently Disruptive Prisoner (VDP) policy, who were repeatedly engaged in very serious violence in prison. The NVRU shifted practice under the VDP policy to a joint operational-psychological approach, with the aim of understanding the violent behaviour of these prisoners and working with them to reduce it. This study explored NVRU prisoners’ understandings of the origins, experiences and expressions of their violent behaviour through the lens of the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF). Despite difficulties engaging this cohort, half (n = 3) of all prisoners residing in the NVRU during its first year participated in semi-structured interviews. Participants identified six themes: (1) power, (2) threat, (3) meaning, (4) threat response, (5) function of threat response and (6) moderating factors. In doing so they identified many a priori elements of the existing provisional PTMF, whilst also contributing novel elements related to their specific and subjective personal experiences. These findings are interpreted in the context of existing empirical research. Implications for future research, and policy and practice within and beyond the NVRU, are suggested.

The Violent Shepherd: Constructing Legitimate Violence in Pre-Nicene Christianity

Summary In the present article, I analyze Greek and Latin sources of pre-Nicene Christianity and argue that violence, although generally overlooked, constitutes an intrinsic and significant aspect of the early Christian model of pastoral rule. I premise my argument on an understanding of violence that rejects so-called ‘legitimist’ definitions, which subordinate the judgment on violence to a judgment on legitimacy and reserve the label of violence for illegitimate actions alone. Congenitally embedded in a network of conflictual relations, the shepherd of early Christian imagery is primarily tasked with the salvation of the sheep from enemies whose ambiguous identity, I argue, often betrays their provenance from within the flock. The shepherd is also engaged in disciplining his animals through measures that include severe physical punishments and exclusion from the herd. To conclude, I argue that the pastoral metaphor is itself an especially powerful instrument in the discursive construction of legitimate violence. For a relevant strand of ancient thought, to frame a particular institution in terms of the shepherd-flock relationship is, I argue, to conceive of it as replicative of the natural and normative order of reality, while also making certain acts of violence appear as the preferable course of action to be sought in the government of the community.