Collective Violence Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This chapter explores spontaneous collective violence, which is generally overlooked in collective violence scholarship. In doing so, through case examples, it illustrates how spontaneous acts of collective violence are welcomed by outlaw... more

This chapter explores spontaneous collective violence, which is generally overlooked in collective violence scholarship. In doing so, through case examples, it illustrates how spontaneous acts of collective violence are welcomed by outlaw clubs, as they contribute towards the clubs’ maintenance of symbolic boundaries and “brotherhood”, a keystone concept that will be critically explored.

CRIMINALIZING HATE SPEECH TO AVERT COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE? WORKING HYPOTHESES ABOUT THE OFFENCE OF “RACIST PROPAGANDA” The essay provides an unusual approach about criminalization of racist propaganda (and also about the interpretation of... more

CRIMINALIZING HATE SPEECH TO AVERT COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE?
WORKING HYPOTHESES ABOUT THE OFFENCE OF “RACIST PROPAGANDA”
The essay provides an unusual approach about criminalization of racist propaganda (and also about the interpretation of Art 604-bis of Italian Penal Code), in order to focus the trend of racism toward institutionalization due to political “hate speech” strategies. Therefore, only propaganda which can actually be converted into discriminatory
public actions, or even into contextual elements of international crimes,
should be qualified as a crime: an outcome constitutionally untenable in itself, regardless of ability to urge “hate crimes”. The risk of restricting individual freedom of speech seems to be reduced, since individuals, quite to the contrary, are going, in this way, to be protected from abuses of public authorities. In addition, a definition of racism is adopted, which necessarily implies false assertions, that don’t deserve a strong constitutional protection. Besides, such assertions are perhaps better exposed to the dynamics of the “free market of ideas” in a criminal trial, than in a public debate widely biased by new media.
Key words: Racism, Propaganda, Criminal Law.

Gewalt besitzt, wie alle sozialen Phänomene, eine zeitliche Struktur. Sie hat eine Vorgeschichte, einen Ablauf und später auftretende Folgen nicht nur für die Opfer und Täter, sondern auch für ganze Gruppen und Gesellschaften.... more

Gewalt besitzt, wie alle sozialen Phänomene, eine zeitliche Struktur. Sie hat eine Vorgeschichte, einen Ablauf und später auftretende Folgen nicht nur für die Opfer und Täter, sondern auch für ganze Gruppen und Gesellschaften. Gewaltereignisse müssen erzählt werden, um ins individuelle und kollektive Gedächtnis treten und tradiert werden zu können. Häufig werden sie als besonders einschneidende Zäsuren wahrgenommen, die das gesellschaftliche Leben in ein Davor und ein Danach teilen. Das ist der Grund, weshalb Narrativität in allen Wissenschaften, die sich mit Gewaltphänomenen beschäftigen, von zentraler Bedeutung ist. Für die Soziologie und Ethnologie gilt das ebenso wie für die Archäologie und Geschichtswissenschaft, wenn auch mit verschiedenen Akzentuierungen und spezifischen Fragestellungen. Vielversprechend erscheint daher das Unterfangen des vorliegenden Bandes, die Diskurse, die in den genannten Disziplinen über Narrativität geführt werden, miteinander ins Gespräch zu bringen.

In autumn 2020, as the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic began, the Constitutional Tribunal issued a ruling that severely restricted access to abortion. Massive street protests, led by Strajk Kobiet (Women’s Strike), quickly followed.... more

In autumn 2020, as the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic began, the Constitutional Tribunal issued a ruling that severely restricted access to abortion. Massive street protests, led by Strajk Kobiet (Women’s Strike), quickly followed.
This sourcebook presents the voices of activists, politicians, and academics on the 2020 protests in Poland after the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling. Sources include press conferences, interviews, public speeches, and parliamentary committees and debates, translated into English and commented on by Polish feminist scholars.
We designed this book to generate insights into the relationship between inequality, street protest, institutions, and violence, for use in research, teaching, journalism, and activism.
This book was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (project no. 2016/23/B/HS6/03916).

Libro de la AEN española sobre violencia colectiva y salud mental

Çok uluslu ve çok dinli/mezhepli imparatorlukların 19. yüzyılda kendi varlıklarına tehdit olarak gördüğü farklı etnik ve dinî unsurlara yönelik uyguladığı yaygın siyasî pratiklerden biri, söz konusu grupları sürgün veya tehcir yoluyla... more

Çok uluslu ve çok dinli/mezhepli imparatorlukların 19. yüzyılda kendi varlıklarına tehdit olarak gördüğü farklı etnik ve dinî unsurlara yönelik uyguladığı yaygın siyasî pratiklerden biri, söz konusu grupları sürgün veya tehcir yoluyla zorla yerinden etmek ve bu unsurları kendi varlıklarına tehdit teşkil etmeyecek sayısal bir düzeye indirmekti. Tehcir ve yeniden yerleştirme siyasaları aynı zamanda bu yüzyıldaki hâkim ideolojik paradigma olan etnik homojenleştirme ethos’uyla paralellik arz ediyordu. Bu politikalar modern devlet kurumlarının istatistik ve etnografya gibi modern bilimin sunduğu yeni imkânlardan yararlanarak ürettiği etnisite mühendisliği çerçevesinde gerçekleştirildi. Burada esas gaye hâkim etnik kimliğe yönelik tehdit unsuru teşkil eden diğer etno-dinsel topluluklar üzerinde kontrol mekanizmaları kurarak bu toplulukları “yönetilebilir” ve “ehlîleştirilebilir” hâle dönüştürmekti. Aynı zamanda bu, devletlerin sınırlarının net çizgilerle belirlenmesi siyasasını da tamamlayıcı nitelikteydi.

Violence was a key element of the interwar radical habitus and was particularly affirmed in far-right movements, which found fertile ground for their ideas among students. However, the influence of the systems of ideas advocated by... more

Violence was a key element of the interwar radical habitus and was particularly affirmed in far-right movements, which found fertile ground for their ideas among students. However, the influence of the systems of ideas advocated by ideologues on student masses seems limited and indirect. Student support for antisemitism and extremism cannot be explained only by cultural conditions, ideology or political engineering. What is needed here are intermediate stages, linking radical ideology with the actions of social actors. I argue that the intermediary function was performed by the symbol of Stanisław Wacławski, a student and member of the Camp of Great Poland (Obóz Wielkiej Polski) who was killed during the antisemitic riots in Vilnius in 1931. The figure of Wacławski was a key element of antisemitic discourse in far-right press and was used by academic societies to construct the annual ritual of violence in the 1930s. I employ the micro-sociological approach and draw on Randall Collins’ theory of “interaction ritual chains” to show that the factors behind the mobilization of ordinary students for collective violence and a chauvinistic agenda included also emotions and personal relations, and not only political identification and advertising.

This article contributes to the slowly growing literature on the 1894-96 Massacres by a microhistory of the event in the city of Harput (Kharpert/Harpoot) on November 11, 1895. Historians shedded light on the structural reasons behind the... more

This article contributes to the slowly growing literature on the 1894-96 Massacres by a microhistory of the event in the city of Harput (Kharpert/Harpoot) on November 11, 1895. Historians shedded light on the structural reasons behind the event and identified the individuals in charge but the collective aspect of the massacres has so far been neglected. In this study, the narratives produced before, during, and after the event are isolated and compared in order to reveal a fundamental change in how the event was described. The article argues (i) that the massacres in the city center were not expected by its residents, (ii) that the event was perceived as an invasion of the city by outsider Kurdish tribesmen rather than an Armenian conspiracy, and (iii) that the reports written after the fact, including those of the officials, missionaries and Armenians, all left out the Kurdish invasion from their later narratives.

Conflits armés et violences collectives dans la commune de Cité Soleil se traduisent, d´un côté, par des rivalités territoriales de groupes armés entre eux, par des affrontements entre ces derniers et les forces de police, de l´autre. Ces... more

Conflits armés et violences collectives dans la commune de Cité Soleil se traduisent, d´un côté, par des rivalités territoriales de groupes armés entre eux, par des affrontements entre ces derniers et les forces de police, de l´autre. Ces deux phénomènes sociaux de fréquence et de répétition dominent cette municipalité haïtienne depuis le début des années 1990, peu après sa fondation en 1960. En effet, située au nord de Port-au-Prince, la capitale, Cité Soleil représente un espace d’opportunité et d’expérimentation pour certaines entités sociales telles le secteur religieux, les groupements politiques, les associations culturelles, les organismes de bienfaisance, les ONG. Pour d’autres, elle demeure un espace de conflit où différentes factions de groupes armés se font violence en rivalisant pour avoir le contrôle de ce territoire. De telles rivalités y ont déjà causé de nombreux dommages humains, matériels, économiques et environnementaux. Leur fréquence, répétition et variation nous incitent à soulever les questions suivantes : Qu’est-ce qui explique que les conflits et violences continuent d’être récurrents à Cité Soleil ? La gestion politique de ces phénomènes par l’Etat central a-t-elle échoué ? Dans quel sens font-ils partie du processus de changement social survenu en Haïti vers les années 1990 ? L´objectif principal de la recherche est de comprendre ces fréquence, répétition et variation et de les expliquer au moyen de discours des acteurs. En accordant une attention particulière aux sens et interprétations que les témoins donnent aux phénomènes en question, nous nous appuierons sur des données quantitatives et qualitatives, sur des méthodes de l’histoire orale et de la sociologie compréhensive en vue de mener cette étude dont le résultat vise à montrer que la répétitivité des conflits et violences à Cité Soleil naît des racines historiques et sociales de la société haïtienne et résulte d’une mauvaise gestion politique et du manque de gestion sociale.

Esta investigación revisa histórica y empíricamente el curso de la contienda política contemporánea en territorio mapuche. Desde fuentes secundarias, como también desde el mismo relato de comunidades movilizadas en la provincia de Arauco,... more

Esta investigación revisa histórica y empíricamente el curso de la contienda política contemporánea en territorio mapuche. Desde fuentes secundarias, como también desde el mismo relato de comunidades movilizadas en la provincia de Arauco, se identifican ciertas continuidades y novedades en el actual ciclo de relaciones contenciosas entre el movimiento mapuche, el Estado chileno y el gran capital forestal. Con especial atención en el contexto sociopolítico, se estudia cómo se han transformado dinámicamente, desde un lado, las estrategias de supresión de la protesta mapuche y, desde el otro, las modalidades de la propia acción colectiva y sus fundamentos discursivos. Este estudio describe un nuevo ciclo de contienda marcado por el incremento de la conflictividad, la violencia y el cierre de los canales político-institucionales. Esta investigación plantea que las fuentes explicativas de la contienda y la violencia derivada estarían principalmente en la propia interacción entre los actores, entre sus marcos y repertorios de protesta, y el propio escenario político institucional.

This paper examines the official terminology, representations, and narratives regarding the origins and nature of the anti-Armenian riots of 1895-1897. Official language provides evidence useful in understanding the ways in which the... more

This paper examines the official terminology, representations, and narratives regarding the origins and nature of the anti-Armenian riots of 1895-1897. Official language provides evidence useful in understanding the ways in which the government authorities conceptualized and responded to these events. It suggests that through the constant use of the passive voice and euphemistic statements, the imperial authorities sought to neutralize the violence committed against a particular segment of the population and tried to conceal the agency of perpetrators in the mass killing of Ottoman Armenians. The official narrative—or the deployment of the concept of provocation as a direct explanation for violence—did not simply arm the Ottoman authorities with a rhetoric they could effectively use for domestic and international consumption, but it also freed them from moral responsibility and the punishment of perpetrators. Narratives of provocation also raised a host of significant questions about causality, accountability, and victimhood.

How do violent protests affect social movement participants? Riots are common in civilian movements, but the effects of protester violence remain under-researched, in part due to an association of civilian protest with nonviolent methods... more

How do violent protests affect social movement participants? Riots are common in civilian movements, but the effects of protester violence remain under-researched, in part due to an association of civilian protest with nonviolent methods and an association of violent protest with irrational chaos. Specifically, few studies have examined the experiences of rioters themselves. I use theoretical analysis and qualitative in-depth interviews with activists from the United States and South Africa to explore the subjective impact that moments of violent protest have on participants. Activist accounts indicate that many experience what I call "contentious effervescence," a heightened state and sense of political empowerment amidst low-level violent actions, with long-term effects that raise consciousness and deepen and sustain activists' resolve. I argue that examining the experiential and emotional effects of riots enhances our ability to understand contentious politics from below.

Drawing on theories of nationalism, two recent books by Dilek Güven and Ülkü Ağır engage with the September Pogrom in Istanbul on the 6th and the 7th of September 1955. To explain the pogrom's emergence from its historical background both... more

Drawing on theories of nationalism, two recent books by Dilek Güven and Ülkü Ağır engage with the September Pogrom in Istanbul on the 6th and the 7th of September 1955. To explain the pogrom's emergence from its historical background both studies discuss the role of Young Turkish ideology, ethnic violence in the course of Turkish nation building, and the development of minority politics throughout the Turkish Republic. On the basis of interviews and archival materials, Dilek Güven meticulously reconstructs the course of events, the actors, their motives and the context. Ülkü Ağır analyses the Turkish press discourse in the pogrom's preparatory phase focusing on the Greek Orthodox community. Critically discussing the two studies, this article scrutinises current conceptualisations of collective violence in research devoted to post-Genocidal Turkey.

Public health, social service, community action, and criminal justice practitioners work with many of the same victims and, or offenders involved in violent criminal, fanatical, or totalitarian assaults in various global locations.... more

Public health, social service, community action, and criminal justice practitioners work with many of
the same victims and, or offenders involved in violent criminal, fanatical, or totalitarian assaults in
various global locations. Offenders and victims often live within the same marginalized communities,
in different disorganized communities in conflict, or in disadvantaged communities or more socially
advantaged communities at odds with one another. Such difficult structural complexity is rendered far
more problematic by the contesting and conflation of variously accurate statistics and unsubstantiated
folk or ideological presumptions.

The violence that characterized the Christian controversies of Late Antiquity was often the result of the dynamic of identity and difference that was engendered by these disputes. This was particularly the case in North Africa, where... more

The violence that characterized the Christian controversies of Late Antiquity was often the result of the dynamic of identity and difference that was engendered by these disputes. This was particularly the case in North Africa, where boundaries between “Catholics” and “Donatists” during the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century were created and maintained by the constant mobilization of a repertoire of hatred. What is striking, however, is that the most serious episodes of collective violence between African Christians almost always involved the capture or the defence of church buildings. The purpose of this paper is to explain why Christian basilicas featured so prominently in this particular dispute. Starting from the theoretical propositions of archaeologists and social scientists working on the materiality and phenomenology of places and landscapes, I suggest that rather than regarding churches as a merely setting or backdrop, we can regard them as an active agent in the construction of Christian identities. In order to do this, I examine, successively, the geographic location and sensory perceptions of Christian basilicas, their material form and the dynamic uses of their internal space, and the contested meanings that different groups of Christians invested in their churches as places of worship and memory.

The racial position of European immigrants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries vis-à-vis blacks and whites is debated. Some argue that many European immigrant groups were initially considered nonwhite, while others argue that... more

The racial position of European immigrants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries vis-à-vis blacks and whites is debated. Some argue that many European immigrant groups were initially considered nonwhite, while others argue that they were almost always considered white, if sometimes still from a distinct intrawhite racial category. Using a new dataset of all lynchings in the American Midwest from 1883 to 1941, we explore differences in collective violence enacted upon three groups: native-born whites, blacks, and European immigrants. We find that European immigrants were lynched in ways, and at rates, much more similar to that of native whites than to those of blacks. Blacks in the Midwest were lynched at roughly 30 times the rate of native-born whites and European immigrants, and were sometimes ritually burned in massive “spectacle lynchings” while native whites and European immigrants were never burned. We find suggestive evidence that European immigrants were perceived to have posed threats to the political order. Our results suggest that, in the American Midwest, despite nativist othering, European immigrants were fully on the white side of the color line, and were protected from collective violence by their white status.

This article deals with the multiple murders of Roma people committed by a number of local citizens in Pobedim, a village in West Slovakia, during the night of October 1–2, 1928, which could be understood as an anti-Roma pogrom. Attention... more

This article deals with the multiple murders of Roma people committed by a number of local citizens in Pobedim, a village in West Slovakia, during the night of October 1–2, 1928, which could be understood as an anti-Roma pogrom. Attention is paid to the interactions between different Czechoslovak state authorities such as gendarmerie, the district office, provincial office, court and municipalities in the region shortly before the outbreak of the pogrom and in its aftermath. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben´s theory elaborated for the analysis of anti-Gypsy measures by various scholars, e.g. Jennifer Illuzzi, the author argues that the extreme violence resulted from the tensions and conflicts between those historical actors who enforced the contemporary anti-Gypsy measures on the regional level and which led to the creation of the state of exception for the population labeled as Gypsies. The analysis also reveals the variety of contemporary practices of exclusion towards the population labeled as Gypsies in interwar Czechoslovakia. Despite the fact that the Roma were victims of a brutal assault even the trials attest to the extreme asymmetry of power between the accused portrayed as “decent citizens” and the bare lives of the Roma. Because the executive state authorities circumvented the judiciary and forged their own solution allegedly more suited to the public interest, the Roma were caught in the state of exception. Furthermore, the article shows how ideas of Gypsies´ internment in various types of forced labor camps as a permanent and spatial embodiment of the state of exception stemmed from the dynamic of enforcing anti-Gypsy measures.

This article analyzes the nexus between collective violence, temple violation, and military glory in 1 and 2 Maccabees by comparing two festivals established in the context of revolt and guerilla warfare; namely, Hanukkah and Nicanor’s... more

This article analyzes the nexus between collective violence, temple violation, and military glory in 1 and 2 Maccabees by comparing two festivals established in the context of revolt and guerilla warfare; namely, Hanukkah and Nicanor’s Day. It argues that the accounts of the origins of these two festivals in 1 and 2 Maccabees reinforce the close connection between the violation of the temple cult and violence against the community in the memories of the Maccabean rebellion that the authors of these books promote. The article further suggests that the annual celebration of Hanukkah and Nicanor’s day was intended to provide sophisticated mnemonic legitimation of the Hasmonean claim to exercise both military and cultic agency as kings and high priests in Judea.

Şiddet, insan hayatına mündemiç bir olgudur. Dolayısıyla şiddet aynı zamanda toplumsaldır ve toplumsallığı ölçüsünde tezahürlerini görmemiz mümkün hale gelir. Bazı toplumsal süreçler belirli toplumlarda bilhassa kriz dönemlerinde bu... more

Şiddet, insan hayatına mündemiç bir olgudur. Dolayısıyla şiddet aynı zamanda toplumsaldır ve toplumsallığı ölçüsünde tezahürlerini görmemiz mümkün hale gelir. Bazı toplumsal süreçler belirli toplumlarda bilhassa kriz dönemlerinde bu şiddetin bütün çıplaklığı ve yüksek boyutuyla kuvveden fiile çıkmasına cevaz verir. Christian Gerlach bunu “aşırı şiddet yanlısı toplumlar” olarak tanımlamaktadır. Tabii burada söz konusu şiddetin taşıyıcıları olan toplumsal aktörlerin hangi motivasyonlar ve dürtülerle aynı toplumda yaşayan gruplara bu boyutlarda vahşet ve şiddet eylemleri ve gösterilerini sergiledikleri cevaplanması elzem olan sorudur.

Far-right political parties in Europe regularly portray Muslims and Islam as backward and a symbolic threat to secular and/or Christian European culture. Similarly, Islamist groups regularly portray Westerners and Western culture as... more

Far-right political parties in Europe regularly portray Muslims and Islam as backward and a symbolic threat to secular and/or Christian European culture. Similarly, Islamist groups regularly portray Westerners and Western culture as decadent and a sym- bolic threat to Islam. Here, we present experimental evidence that meta-cultural threat – information that members of an out- group perceive one’s own culture as a symbolic threat to their culture – increases intention and endorsement of political vio- lence against that outgroup. We tested this in three experimental studies among Muslims and non-Muslims in Scandinavia. In Studies 1 and 2, we experimentally manipulated whether the dominant majority group was portrayed as seeing Muslim culture and lifestyle as backward and incompatible with their own culture. These portrayals increased the endorsement of extremist vi - olence against the West and violent behavioural intentions among Muslims living in Denmark and Sweden. Study 3 used a sim- ilar paradigm among non-Muslim Danes and demonstrated that learning about Muslims portraying the non-Muslim Danish in- group as a threat increased endorsement of ethnic persecution of Muslims, conceptually replicating the general effect that meta-cultural threat fuels endorsement of extremist violence among both majority and minority groups.

Unlike other subjects of philosophy, violence is a familiar part of our everyday life, even if we usually encounter it primarily in the news. But does this mean that we already know what “violence” really is? So it would seem. Yet on... more

Unlike other subjects of philosophy, violence is a familiar part of our everyday life, even if we usually encounter it primarily in the news. But does this mean that we already know what “violence” really is? So it would seem. Yet on second, philosophically mindful thoughts it becomes apparent that this seemingly trivial question is anything but easy to answer.
This book offers a critical enquiry of the concept of violence, including detailed discussions of the concepts of collective and institutionalized violence. It shows that these concepts, while remaining “essentially contested”, can be defined sufficiently precise to expose and criticize the strategically motivated abuse of the concept of violence that we encounter all too often.

[English] This article outlines a methodology of processual explanation. Amenable to a wide range of research objects as well as social theories, this methodology allows for generalized conclusions on a higher level of abstraction. We... more

[English] This article outlines a methodology of processual explanation. Amenable to a wide range of research objects as well as social theories, this methodology allows for generalized conclusions on a higher level of abstraction. We argue that a processual explanation of empirical cases requires two modes of temporal reconstruction, basic and complex. Whereas basic reconstruction provides a detailed description of sequences of events, complex reconstruction captures interlacing and interfering sequences. Taken together, these sequences and their interlacements as well as interferences constitute the needed explanation of the phenomenon focused on. The methodology is based on two empirical case studies: (a) mass shootings and (b) the rise of the field of empirical educational research. In both cases, the temporal concept of the turning-point is central to their processual explanation. The research agenda that follows from this article is the integration of further temporal concepts into this methodology.
[German] Der Artikel zielt darauf ab, Grundzüge einer Methodologie prozessualen Erklärens (MpE) zu erörtern, die erstens gegenstandsoffen ist, sich zweitens in Bezug auf sozialtheoretische Prämissen möglichst wenig einschränkt und drittens generalisierende Aussagen erlaubt, die vom jeweils untersuchten Gegenstand abstrahieren. Der Begriff des Timings fungiert als explanatorisches Schlüsselkonzept. Die Erklärung setzt voraus, das interessierende Geschehen zunächst möglichst detailliert zu rekonstruieren. Während die basale Rekonstruktion dazu dient, die Sequenzialität der Ereignisse zu beschreiben, hat die komplexe Rekonstruktion zum Ziel, Verschachtelungen und Interferenzen der Sequenzen zu eruieren, die zusammengenommen das erklärungsbedürftige Phänomen bilden. Maßgeblich inspiriert ist die MpE durch zwei sehr unterschiedliche Untersuchungsfälle: (a) Massenerschießungen und (b) Empirische Bildungsforschung. Die Studien haben jedoch gemeinsam, dass die Verlaufsform des Wendepunkts zur prozessualen Erklärung der Ereignisse dient. Die Forschungsperspektive ist, weitere Verlaufsformen sozialen Geschehens in den hier vorgeschlagenen Ansatz einzubeziehen.