Social Violence Research Articles

Structural Trauma

Abstract This article addresses the experience of precarity and vulnerability in racialized gender-based violence from a structural perspective. Informed by Indigenous social theory and anticolonial approaches to intergenerational trauma that link settler colonial violence to the modalities of stress-inducing social, institutional, and cultural violences in marginalized women’s lives, the article argues that philosophical failures to understand trauma as a functional, organizational tool of settler colonial violence amplify the impact of traumatic experience on specific populations. It is trauma by design. The article explores this through the history of the concept of trauma and its connection to tragedy. The article gives a brief overview of prominent theories of trauma and contrasts these with the work of Dian Million (Tanana Athabascan) (2013), who highlights functional complicity of settler colonial institutions in shaping accounts of trauma in the west. The piece begins with an important illustration of the kinds of lives and experiences that call for a politicized understanding of trauma in anticolonial feminist theory. It ends by offering an expansive notion of structural trauma that is a methodological pivot for conducting trauma-based gender-based violence research in a decolonial context, which calls for an end to narratives of trauma that are severed from the settler colonial project of Native land dispossession and genocide.

Gendered Disparities in Water and Sanitation through an Intersectional Lens: Emphasising Women’s Perspectives

The relationship between gender and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) has been a widely accepted concern among academicians, activists, and social workers in India, but research and policies focusing on gender and sanitation often fail to address the issue of the intersectionality of identities. Analysing the complex intersection of caste, class, age and gender with water and sanitation in rural India extends new opportunities to explore the complex power dynamics prevalent in society. A focus group study with 54 female participants of seven discussions and in-depth interviews has been conducted in the Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh to explore the social relations and differences in the physical world within the context of accessibility, affordability, and availability in the water and sanitation sector. Given gendered and other social divisions, we elaborate on how women play an essential role in water and sanitation management in the household. This study also offers evidence of rural women’s experiences of intra-personal, household, and social harassment and violence related to poor or absence of sanitation and water infrastructure due to intersectional social dynamics. We also demonstrate how theorising about a single dimension of social difference ignores the different groups’ access to power, leading to inequality and disparity.

Beyond the Veil

This article critically analyzes the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) and its relationship with the widely recognized Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which guarantees and protects human rights for all regardless of gender, social and economic situations. Adopted by 45 Islamic states in 1990, the CDHRI is often portrayed as complementing the UDHR but is rooted in Sharia Law, leading to tensions between universal and cultural relativist perspectives on human rights. By using Saudi Arabia and Indonesia as case studies to illustrate the various manners the Sharia Law is implemented, this paper illustrates how the law in these countries amplifies social, physical, and structural violence specifically against gender and religious minorities, namely Shia. This highlights the immense disparities between international human rights norms and state-centric patriarchal norms. Additionally, by analyzing the legal frameworks of these states, specifically the Aceh region in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia as a whole, this article emphasizes the complex interplay between universalistic ideals and cultural relativism, emphasizing the need for a nuanced understanding of human rights in diverse cultural contexts.

Persecution as stigma-driven trauma: Social determinants, stigma, and violence in asylum seekers in the United States

ObjectiveExisting literature documents high rates of experienced violence in asylum seekers. Despite this high prevalence, experiences of traumatic stress are neither necessary nor sufficient grounds for claiming asylum, without documented experiences of persecution. The aim of the current study is to better understand the role of co-occurring pre-migratory social determinants, stigma, and trauma on the experiences of persecution among asylum seekers in the United States. MethodWe conducted a retrospective file review of legal declarations submitted by 25 asylum seekers who participated in forensic mental health evaluations at a pro-bono asylum clinic. We coded de-identified data for co-occurring events of trauma, social determinants of health, and components of “discrimination” from the legal definition of persecution - conceptualizing persecution as stigma-driven infliction of violence. Data was analyzed using a tiered deductive and inductive reflexive thematic analysis. ResultsFindings suggest pre-migratory social determinants included demographics, neighborhood, economic, environmental, and social and cultural level disparities across various grounds for seeking asylum, and experiences of stigma were associated with the specific acts of violence and harm. ConclusionsOur findings - specific to asylum seekers who have obtained legal representation and completed applications for asylum in the United States - describe the co-occurrence of social determinants, stigma and traumatic experiences among asylum seekers. To our knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to bridge the existing legal framework of asylum to a psychological construct incorporating trauma, stigma, and social determinants of health, lending support for the conceptualization of persecution as stigma-driven trauma.

A Gender and Disability Perspective on the Media's Contribution to Gender-Based Violence in India

A considerable amount of derogatory communication directed towards women has been transmitted through social networking sites in the form of online abuse, which has increased significantly in recent years. Social media is significant in the current technological era. Social media is both promoting gender-based violence, which primarily targets women and girls with disabilities and empowering women by dispelling outdated beliefs and stereotypes. Social media gender-based violence encompasses a range of activities such as uninvited sexual remarks, postings, threats, cyberstalking, tracking, hacking, and stalking. This is due to illiteracy and immature thought processes. Social media has made it possible to spread horrific stories about violent incidents involving women across the nation. In India, gender-based violence is still a major issue. The research holds significance for society as social media plays a major role in the violence against women with disabilities. The current study looks into the effects of gender-based violence on disabled women and how it is promoted on social media. Secondary sources such as newspapers, journals, magazines, texts, the internet, etc. are the basis of the study, and descriptive research formats are used for the analysis. The anticipated outcome would support the various ways that gender-based violence is promoted on social media, which causes socioeconomic hardship for women.

Associations between Unplanned Pregnancy, Low Social Support, Domestic Violence, and Intrapartum Complication, with Postpartum Depression: Meta Analysis

Background: The postpartum period is a period where the risk of depression and other mental disorders generally increases due to the physiological and psychosocial changes that occur. The aim of this study was to measure the relationship using the meta-analysis method of unplanned pregnancy, poor social support, domestic violence, complications during childbirth with the incidence of postpartum depression..
 Subjects and Method: This research is a systematic review and meta-analysis. Article searches were carried out using PICO. Population: Postpartum women. Interventions: unplanned pregnancy, poor social support, domestic violence, and complications during childbirth. Comparison: planned pregnancy, good social support, no domestic violence, and no complications during childbirth. Outcome: Postpartum depression. The keywords used in the article search were "postpartum depression" AND "unplanned pregnancy" AND "poor social support" AND "intimate partner violence" AND “delivery complications”. Articles were obtained from several databases including Google Scholar, Pubmed, Science Direct from 2015-2023. Data is processed using the Review Manager Application (RevMan 5.3)
 Results: Meta-analysis of 11 cross-sectional studies showed that unplanned pregnancy increased the risk of postpartum depression (aOR= 2.69; 95% CI= 2.30 to 3.16; p= 0.001). Meta-analysis of 11 cross-sectional studies showed that low social support increased the risk of postpartum depression (aOR= 2.35; 95% CI= 1.46 - 3.79; p= 0.004). Meta-analysis of 7 cross-sectional studies showed that partner violence increased the risk of postpartum depression (aOR= 2.82; 95% CI= 1.81 - 4.40; p= 0.001). Meta-analysis of 6 cross-sectional studies showed that complications during delivery increased the risk of postpartum depression (aOR= 2.20; 95% CI= 1.75 to 2.77; p= 0.001).
 Conclusion: Unplanned pregnancies, poor social support, partner violence, and complications during childbirth increase the risk of postnatal depression.
 Keywords: Unplanned pregnancy, social support, partner violence, postpartum depression.
 Correspondence: Wulan Adis Aranti. Master’s Program in Public Health, Universitas Sebelas Maret. Jl. Ir. Sutami 36A, Surakarta 57126, Central Java. Email: wulanaranti@gmail.com.

Broadcast Media Sensitization on Violence Against Women and Children in Port Harcourt

The study examined broadcast media sensitization on violence against women and children in Port Harcourt. The broadcast media have been sensitizing the members of audience on violence against women and children that happens in form of rape, domestic violence, among others. The social cognitive theory and aggressive cues media violence theory were adopted for the study. Three objectives which include to determine the frequency of broadcast media sensitization on violence against women and children in Port Harcourt and to examine the perception of residents of Port Harcourt towards broadcast media sensitization on violence against women and children and three research questions were adopted. Research methodology used was the survey design with the Taro Yamane formula used in deriving the sample size of 400 from the population size of 1,148,665. The convenience sampling technique was used and questionnaire was the instrument for data collection. Simple frequency distribution tables and percentages were used in the interpretation of data. Findings revealed that reports and programmes on violence against women and children in Port Harcourt are not broadcast regularly. Findings also revealed that residents of Port Harcourt find reports on violence against women and children to be scary, unreal and far. In conclusion, the broadcast media -radio and tv are great tools to influence sensitization because of their audio and audio-visual qualities. The study recommended that members of the audience will appreciate the adequacy of sensitization on violence against women and children when perpetrators are made to face the full weight of the law to serve as deterrent to others.

Traumatic experiences and mental health status for female ethnic minority adolescents and young adults on the run from their families due to negative social control

ABSTRACT This study addresses family-related violence against ethnic minority women, a global public health concern. The study aims to investigate various forms of negative social control experienced by this group at the Safehouse, assess their mental health status, examine the links between negative social control and mental health outcomes, and the impact of other potentially traumatic events in this context. Data was collected at a safehouse with 86 young Danish ethnic minority women, who have been sheltered due to experiences of negative social control in the family. Measures included the ICD-11 Trauma Questionnaire, Life Event Checklist, Beck Youth Inventories, Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory as well as background information, where respondents were asked whether they had experienced negative social control, violence etc. and sociodemographic characteristics. Findings indicate severe mental health consequences, such as high prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (50.7%) and Complex-PTSD (C-PTSD) (29.9%), as well as severe symptoms of depression and anxiety in a large proportion of the respondents. Furthermore, correlations suggested that negative social control might play an important role in the development of e.g. PTSD. A hierarchical regression analysis including negative social control, explained 35.5% of the PTSD symptomatology. Most of the young people who seeks shelter at a Safehouse suffer from severe mental health problems due to violence and negative social control. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed. Future research should further focus on psychological sequelae in a prospective design. The development and validation of a measure for negative social control would contribute greatly to this area of research.

Neuropsychological Stimulation Program for Children from Low Socioeconomic Backgrounds: Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Guatemala remains one of the poorest countries in Central America and suffers from high rates of social inequality and violence. In addition to the negative impact that two years without attending school has had on Guatemalan children due to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, this unfavourable socioeconomic context poses a risk to children's emotional and cognitive development. This work presents a protocol for implementing a cognitive and emotional stimulation program aimed at increasing the academic performance of these children and consequently improving their quality of life. The protocol proposes the implementation of a randomized controlled trial to assess the efficacy of a 24-session-long stimulation program. It targets the cognitive functions of attention, language, executive functions, and social cognition, using the digital neurorehabilitation platform NeuronUP. The participants (n = 480) will be randomly assigned to an Experimental or Control group. Pre- and post-intervention assessments will be carried out, together with a follow-up in the next academic year, in which both groups will change roles. Results will be compared for the first and second years, looking for differences in academic and cognitive performance between groups. Mid- and long-term outcomes are still unknown, but effective interventions based on this protocol are expected to facilitate the following benefits for participants: (1) improved cognitive and emotional development; (2) improved academic performance; (3) improved well-being. We expect to create a validated neuropsychological stimulation program that could be applied in similar socioeconomically disadvantaged contexts around the world to help these children improve their life chances.

Violence and Democracy

Abstract The relationship between violence and democracy is an enduring theme in political science. We know that civil war, revolution, and state repression are much less likely under democratic rule, but how do we get from such violence to democracy? We draw upon Sarah Zukerman Daly's book, Violent Victors: Why Bloodstained Parties Win Postwar Elections, to explore these questions. Daly addresses the enigma of belligerent parties, often marred by heinous atrocities, emerging victorious in postwar elections. She shows how such violent victors triumph by playing on their capacity to provide security. We broaden out from Daly's focus on postwar democratization to consider the prospects for democracy in the wake of state repression and revolution. Our review finds that voters may be less forgiving of violent state repression compared with civil war violence; political parties emerging from civil wars and state repression face cognate yet distinct challenges; and social revolutionary violence poses more serious and durable threats to democratization than violence from civil wars and state repression. These findings underscore the need for a wider research agenda that investigates the diverse forms of social and political violence and their implications for democracy.

Destroying the “Human” for the Survival of the World: A Proposal for a Temporally Dense Psychoanalytic Subject

ABSTRACT Despite the pandemic upending in-person clinical treatments, psychoanalysis struggles to conceptualize a frame that is truly open to a world beyond the singular, human only dyad. This article challenges psychoanalysis to blowup the frame of practice by destroying the very subject of the work – the human. Integrating key concepts from anti-blackness and indigenous theories, the author contends that the category of the human is inherently and irreparably violent; the undergirding onto-epistemological system for the formation of white settler colonial, heteropatriarchal subjectivity and its co-created violences of enslavement, dispossession, genocide, mass extinctions, and ecological destruction. Because psychoanalysis has evolved around this Enlightenment subject that renders certain people “human,” and all others disposable, its frame and focus is designed to uphold, not resist, biopolitical and ecological violence. Thus, psychoanalysis is onto-epistemologically unfit and unable to effectively address social violences and the climate crisis while emanating from this exceptionalist “human.” Integrating anti-blackness and indigenous theories, the author, using examples from clinical work online, proposes a different form of subjectivity, one that is co-emergent with “dense temporalities” of the more-than-human. Only through such a temporally dense, transcorporeal subject can psychoanalysis hope to subvert the world of human destruction.

Human mobility in Mexico:

The objective was to describe the state of the art of three relevant categories regarding human mobility of adults who move to the United States mainly from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela and Mexico: a) driving factors, b) risks they face during the journey and c) consequences that the experience as a whole generates in the psychosocial, family, physical and mental health dimensions. Based on the review of various studies, the knowledge generated in the first decades of the 21st century on the continent is described. The findings indicated that the driving factors are mainly socioeconomic, political, environmental, the search for educational opportunities and family reunification. During the journey there is vulnerability and risks with multiple experiences of victimization, social and contextual violence. It is concluded that human mobility brings with it psychosocial consequences such as mental health problems, grief, family rearrangements, stigmatization, social and labor exclusion.

Unpacking LGBT+ hate crimes discourse in Italy: between symbolic recognition and claims for sexual citizenship

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to provide a critical account of the hate crime (HC) paradigm by exploring its historical legal definition and the limitations in addressing the multiple and structural discriminations faced by minority groups. Specifically, the article focuses on the case of Italy, where in recent years a fierce debate over a proposed law on HC against LGBT+ and disabled people ended in its rejection due to neoconservative and Catholic opposition.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on critical socio-criminological literature on HC, the paper analyses the Italian debates and socio-legal context over the past two decades regarding discrimination against LGBT+ groups and its (lack of) criminalization. It also provides a secondary analysis of recent data on violence and discrimination against LGBT+ people, collected by the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).FindingsThe analysis of the debate and the data collected shows that the criminal definition of HC is insufficient to capture the wider range of social and cultural violence and discrimination against LGBT+ people. Indeed, data analysis shows the effect of the low level of recognition of rights on the propensity of people to denounce and of social practitioners to recognize, discrimination and violence against LGBT+ people. It is therefore argued that the discussion on HC should move beyond the criminalization of individual violence to be entrenched in a broader reflection over the lack of recognition of sexual citizenship rights which perpetuates the vulnerability of LGBT+ people.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the international socio-criminological debate on HC. It argues for a comprehensive framework that recognizes the structural nature of discrimination and violence against vulnerable groups by framing discrimination and violence against LGBT+ people as a citizenship right rather than a criminal justice issue.

Building a Nexus between Feminist Perceptions and Gender-based Violence: The case of Harare Province

The study sought to interrogate men and women’s perceptions of feminism and build a nexus between those perceptions of Gender-Based Violence. Gender-based violence manifests as physical, social, emotional and psychological violence among people especially when interlinked with feminist discourse. The study was carried out utilizing the mixed methods paradigm. One hundred males and 100 females took part in the quantitative study while 4 focus group discussions were conducted with 40 persons and 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews. Findings from the study show that 76% of respondents from the study recognise the concept of feminism as the fight for equal rights, 12% as the empowerment of women, 6% acknowledged it as a move to take over the roles of men while the other 6% understand feminism as a move to ensure that women make decisions normally made by men. Forty percent of the respondents stated that the call for equality breaks families apart, 27% of the respondents indicated that feminism unites families while the other 20% indicated that feminism is a necessary evil. As such, this article recommends the alignment of feminist discourses to indigenous practices in a manner that does not seek to disrupt the social order of African society.

Pelecehan Seksual dalam Dunia Maya : Studi Kasus Terhadap Penggunaan Media Sosial

The objective of this research is to identify the factors causing sexual harassment on social media and its impact on gender, as well as to analyze the number of sexual harassment cases that occurred in 2020. The methodology employed in this study involves data analysis from partner institutions of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) and the Service and Referral Unit (UPR) of Komnas Perempuan. The data encompasses the quantity of sexual harassment cases on social media and cases of violence against women in general. The research findings indicate a significant decrease in the number of sexual harassment cases on social media in 2020, with only 120 institutions returning questionnaires, down from 239 institutions the previous year. However, there is an increase in overall cases of violence against women, with 8,234 cases handled by the partner institutions of Komnas Perempuan. From this study, it can be concluded that despite the decline in the number of sexual harassment cases on social media, cases of violence against women in general continue to rise. This suggests that sexual harassment on social media and violence against women are issues that need continuous identification and serious attention.

COVID-19 is an Amplifier of Social Inequalities Structural Violence against Students with Special Learning Needs and Low Socio-Economic Status

In the year 2019, the curtain has risen, setting the stage for a pandemic which has since been infecting millions and millions of individuals around the world, thereby affecting, disrupting, and intensifying our reliance on technology in a techno-driven era. Schooling mode has coped with the situation and switched from a traditional, in-person one to an online, virtual one. While our reliance on technology did not begin from there, the pandemic has transformed the reliance on technology into a necessity even for students. Learning disparities amongst students from different socio-economic statuses resulted from resources and access disparities have never been more conspicuously amplified before. Not every family has the financial resources to support the hardware and the soft skills required for ‘online/homeschooling’; additionally, these drastic changes occurred so rapidly that online learning is still a new concept to many students in various educational contexts. Despite how emergency remote teaching has seemingly enabled the continuation of schooling and countered the disruption of teaching and learning, the inconvenient truth is that students’ learning, particularly those coming from multiple intersectionalities: special educational needs and from low-income families, has been seriously jeopardised. This paper uses Foucauldian theory of power and resistance as well as agency to explore how the pandemic has contextualised social exclusion faced by students with special educational needs who also belong in the group of lower socio-economic statuses. The significance of the study lies in how it applies the classic yet timely theory of Foucault’s power and resistance and aims to dissect the social inequalities that are hidden beneath emergency remote teaching. The second key finding is showing how the aids and assistance given by non-profit organisations are often an ostensible reinforcement of social injustice, as society is under the misguided zeal that certain social groups have received help, where in fact, the learning of students belonging in those hidden groups are not being taken care of and in some cases, are even jeopardised.

Gender, power and international (mis)recognition: Russia’s quest for epistemic agency through the ‘civilisational’ crusade against the rights of sexual and gender minorities

This article explores Russia’s quest for agential equality with the US through the lens of the gendered dynamics of international (mis)recognition. It draws on the constructivist scholarship that emphasises Moscow’s unfulfilled desire for parity with, and perceived misrecognition by, the West as one of the principal drivers of post-Soviet Russian foreign policy. However, the article moves beyond these analyses by bringing to the fore the centrality of gender in the Kremlin’s pursuit of recognition. It argues that Russia’s ‘civilisational’ crusade against universal human rights, especially the rights of sexual and gender minorities, should be understood as part of the broader struggle for recognition on Russia’s terms. Since misrecognition is associated with curtailed agency and lower status, it invokes associations with femininity, which Russian elites and society generally view as a humiliating act of emasculation. Moscow’s crusade against the rights of sexual and gender minorities has been explicitly predicated on gendered meanings, discourses and policies. This crusade has been intended as a bold, remasculinising campaign that would enable Russia to assert its epistemic agency in the realm of universal human rights and establish epistemic parity with the West. Importantly, Moscow’s struggle against perceived Western misrecognition comes at a cost to sexual and gender minorities in Russia: it amounts to structural, social and physical violence against these minorities, rendering them profoundly insecure.

Ecuador: social inequality, violence and pandemics

Ecuador: social inequality, violence and pandemics

Citizen Perceptions of Crime and Their Effect on Support for Illiberal Democratic Rule

In developing countries, perceptions of crime and actual crime victimization have been linked to less public support for democratic regimes. In countries with weak democratic institutions and limited horizontal accountability, populist presidents can exploit this situation by promoting vertical accountability. This vulnerability of democratic institutions arises because some citizens perceive strong-arm rule as a solution to the perceived increase in social violence. This study focuses on the Philippines, where president Rodrigo Duterte was elected in 2016 on a “law and order” platform centered on an extralegal war on drugs. Analyzing data from two waves of the World Values Survey, I find that perceptions of crime significantly influenced Filipino respondents’ support for authoritarian rule and reduced support for democracy based on civil liberties; the effect became more pronounced under the Duterte administration. Notably, actual crime victimization was not statistically correlated with preference for authoritarianism.

A PROTEÇÃO DA CRIANÇA E DO ADOLESCENTE, DEVER DE TODOS

Unfortunately, the presence of adolescents in urban crime does not lack financial resources as the only responsible aspect. We must add to this factor the low level of education, the fragility of family bonds, as well as the social violence that integrates and plagues our daily lives. Responsibility for the adolescent's physical, cognitive, social and affective development requires a lot of attention from the family and the State. Financial difficulties, as well as in social and affective relationships, which are difficult to overcome by families, can cause a situation of risk to adolescents, which, at times, end up boosting their entry into crime. And, after entering criminality, resocialization becomes almost impossible. Preventive work is urgently and extremely necessary. We must work and provide protection before they enter the world of crime, because afterwards, it is very difficult to save them.