An Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Violence: A Commentary

Washington University Review of Philosophy, 2022

This article explores three philosophical issues regarding the concept of violence. First, violence is not just an act, it is also an experience. The study of violence should not focus exclusively on understanding actions that cause harm. Instead, a more phenomenological approach is required, one that prioritizes the experience of violence, especially those of victims and survivors of violence. Second, it is necessary to distinguish between "unwanted" and "unconsented" violence. Third, the definition of violence as violation of integrity or wholeness will come into scrutiny. In particular, to what extent does integrity as intactness apply to human beings, and if violence is defined in terms of breaking something intact, can violence be done to something that is already broken?

Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture

Violence works at the same time as what we find in the world according to our best description of reality, and as what we fight and reject, hoping for a more peaceful world. It may also be what we recommend, as the only way to change things, or even what we celebrate, as the key resource of true art. Sometimes we even think that adequate theory arises from violence against given paradigms. How can it be so? Do we really understand what we refer to when we speak about violence?

Political Studies Review, 2005

The aim of this review article is to explore some theoretical issues regarding the nature and scope of violence. There are two ways of thinking about violence: in terms of an act of force, or in terms of a violation. Those who define violence as an intentional act of excessive or destructive force endorse a narrow conception of violence (the Minimalist Conception of Violence or MCV), while those who see violence in terms of a violation of rights champion a broader conception of violence (the Comprehensive Conception of Violence or CCV). The strengths and weaknesses of both approaches will be assessed.

The Many Faces of Violence: Toward an Integrative Phenomenological Conception Events of extreme violence, such as suicide-attacks, 9/11, or the “return of a new archaic violence,” have recently renewed attention about physical violence. Interestingly, there has also been a reappearance of concern about social, cultural, and structural violence. However, while all these forms have been subject to special studies, interdisciplinary research is still hampered by the lack of a unifying approach. What is missing is a paradigm that allows us to think these forms of violence as aspects of a unified phenomenon. To resolve this deficit and elaborate an integrative conception of violence, this project will use the phenomenological method. Generally viewed, phenomenology studies how we make sense of the world. Our working hypothesis holds that violence is destructive of sense and, on a more foundational level, our bodily capacities of sense-making. We see embodiment as a multi-level phenomenon, beginning with the physical “I can” and proceeding through various levels of cultural, social, and political practices. Given this correlation, we will analyze how violence destroys the ways we make sense of the world and ourselves according to our traditions and institutions. Because such sense structures delineate our world by forming a series of dependencies, we can be exposed to indirect violence, i.e. symbolic, cultural, and structural. To unfold the implications of our research, we will examine specific examples of cultural and political collapse, so-called “cultures of violence,” “coercive environments,” as well as structures of multiple social exclusion. In this context, we will also address the poietic function of violence and analyze how it is used for the formation and expression of identity, involving both individuals and collectivities. As to the traditional equation of sovereignty and freedom, expressions of identity imply determinations of the other in terms of irrationality and threat that can be used to justify one’s own violence. In uncovering this circle of violence and counter-violence, we, finally, seek to rethink our political categories beyond the logic of confrontation that rests upon essentialist misconceptions of our communal being. To construct an integrative approach to violence, our research will present a non-subjectivist phenomenology that enables us to see how violence is destructive of sense. In testing this hypothesis on historic, sociological and anthropological materials, we will ground our research empirically. Thus, we will, in the last analysis, elaborate a methodology for interdisciplinary research that will foster a deeper understanding of the many interrelated faces of violence. Project underwritten by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF P 20300) (1.11.2007 - 30.06.2011)

Aiming to provide a distinct answer to the questions of what violence is and where it is located, the paper first looks at the extended conceptualisations of violence by focusing on the approaches of Galtung, Zizek, and Arendt. It then examines such an extended conceptualisation in the reflections of violence behind the context of torture. It has been argued that approaching violence as a phenomenon that is salient not only in those venues such as battlefield or military affairs but also in those that are less related to the physical forms of violence is a useful way to understand the forms of violence appear within the context of torture.

2007

This article deals with violences of culture and cultures of violence. After reviewing the specificity of anthropological views of violence, we propose a processual reconceptualisation of this, reflect on the forms and possible consequences of ethnographic research and representation in this field, and end by outlining the future of an anthropology of violence that can also be an anthropology of peace. An epilogue on 11 March serves to relocate this theoretical sketch in the context of global terrorism.

The Meanings of Violence: From Critical Theory to Biopolitics, edited by Gavin Rae and Emma Ingala (New York: Routledge, 2019), pp. 1-9.

Introduction to the edited volume 'The Meanings of Violence: From Critical Theory to Biopolitics, edited by Gavin Rae and Emma Ingala (New York: Routledge, 2019).