Peace Psychology

Author(s):  
Daniel J. Christie

Peace psychology seeks to apply psychosocial principles to prevent and mitigate direct, structural, and cultural violence and promote harmony and equity in human relations. Two waves of peace psychology research and practice can be delineated. The first wave generated concepts, themes, and perspectives aimed at the prevention of nuclear war and mitigation of intractable conflicts characterized by repeated cycles of violence. The second wave enlarged the scope of peace psychology to include the amelioration of structural violence, the kind of violence that afflicts most of the world’s population and kills people slowly through the deprivation of life-extending human need satisfaction. The most recent iteration of the second wave addresses the cultural violence visited upon formerly colonized countries and calls for the development of theory and praxis informed by emancipatory methodologies.

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-55
Author(s):  
Héctor García Hernández ◽  
Guadalupe Alvear Galindo

The purpose of this work is to provide elements to understand, in a broad way, the violence within medical training, since most of the work on the subject focuses on its consequences: for example, the physical and psychological conditions of violent acts in the medical training. The article begins with the concept of violence proposed by Galtung, that points out direct violence, structural violence and cultural violence. Then, it describes the hegemonic medical model as a sculptor of medical culture and its effect on medical practice and medical education. Afterwards, it describes the medical habitus and the hidden curriculum, two elements of the medical culture. The first one refers to how the medical personnel justifies the use of violence, the second one refers to what is taught about the structure, organization and function of the health institutions. Then, the article reviews the characteristics of the health institutions as spaces where an organized medical practice is crystallized in a rigid, hierarchical and vertical manner. We then focus on the worker/student conflict. These conditions are necessary for the appearance of direct violence in the medical training. Key words: Cultural violence; structural violence; direct violence; medical training; hegemonic medical model.


2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey N. Kingston ◽  
Saheli Datta

Norms of global responsibility have changed significantly since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and today’s international community critically considers responsibilities within and beyond state borders, as evidenced by the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. From this starting point, protection must be extended to large populations susceptible to structural violence – social harms resulting from the pervasive and persistent impact of economic, political and cultural violence in societies. In order to show the potential of expanded conceptions of global responsibility, this article proceeds as follows: First, a discussion of the evolving concepts of responsibility outlines a shift in thinking about sovereignty that creates a multilayered system of responsibility. This section defines key concepts and highlights an ‘unbundled R2P’ framework for approaching structural violence. Second, an overview of two vulnerable populations – internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the stateless – illustrates that large-scale cases of state abuse and neglect are not limited to acts of physical violence, and that pervasive structural violence requires further attention from the international community. Lastly, recommendations are provided for expanding the scope of global responsibility in order to assist the internally displaced and the stateless. These recommendations address who is responsible, when global responsibility is warranted, and how such responsibility should be implemented.


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