Structural and Cultural Violence in Religion and Peacebuilding

2015 ◽  
pp. 145-180
Author(s):  
Jason A. Springs
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Peace Studies ◽  
Cultural Violence ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
Reflexive Sociology ◽  
Cornel West ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Martin Luther King

This chapter makes the case for the necessity of a multi-focal conception of violence in religion and peacebuilding. It first traces the emergence and development of the analytical concepts of structural and cultural violence in peace studies, demonstrating how these lenses draw central insights from, but also differ from and improve upon, critical theory and reflexive sociology. It argues that addressing structural and cultural forms of violence—perhaps especially in non-deadly manifestations—are concerns as central as addressing direct (explicit, personal) and deadly forms of violence for building just and sustainable peace. It argues, further, that religiously informed and/or motivated peacebuilders are especially well-appointed and equipped to identify and address violence in its structural and cultural manifestations. The chapter then examines how concepts of structural and cultural violence centrally inform the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. and Cornel West to cultivate just and sustainable peace in a context as putatively peaceful and prosperous as the United States.

Assessment and Critical Pedagogy

2019 ◽  
pp. 306-324
Author(s):  
Frank Abrahams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teacher Performance ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
The United States ◽  
Summative Assessments ◽  
The World ◽  
Integrative Assessment

This chapter aligns the tenets of critical pedagogy with current practices of assessment in the United States. The author posits that critical pedagogy is an appropriate lens through which to view assessment, and argues against the hegemonic practices that support marginalization of students. Grounded in critical theory and based on Marxist ideals, the content supports the notion of teaching and learning as a partnership where the desire to empower and transform the learner, and open possibilities for the learner to view the world and themselves in that world, are primary goals. Political mandates to evaluate teacher performance and student learning are presented and discussed. In addition to the formative and summative assessments that teachers routinely do to students, the author suggests integrative assessment, where students with the teacher reflect together on the learning experience and its outcomes. The chapter includes specific examples from the author’s own teaching that operationalize the ideas presented.

Toward Jerusalem: A journey of the eternal now (A Sermon)

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-107
Author(s):  
Richard Francis Wilson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The United States ◽  
Paul Tillich ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
As I Lay Dying ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Martin Luther King

This article is a theological-ethical Lenten sermon that attempts to discern the transcendent themes in the narrative of Luke 9-19 with an especial focus upon “setting the face toward Jerusalem” and the subsequent weeping over Jerusalem. The sermon moves from a passage from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through a series of hermeneutical turns that rely upon insights from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Will Campbell, Augustine, and Paul Tillich with the hope of illuminating what setting of the face on Jerusalem might mean. Tillich’s “eternal now” theme elaborates Augustine’s insight that memory and time reduce the present as, to paraphrase the Saint, that all we have is a present: a present remembered, a present experienced, and a present anticipated. The Gospel is a timeless message applicable to every moment in time and history. The sermon seeks to connect with recent events in the United States and the world that focus upon challenges to the ideals of social justice and political tyranny.

An economy of false securities? An analysis of murders inside gated residential developments in the United States

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowland Atkinson ◽  
Oliver Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gated Communities ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Residential Developments ◽  
The Social ◽  
High Crime ◽  
Media Narratives ◽  
Forms Of Violence

The move to gated communities has been linked to both rising affluence and anxiety. These attempts to withdraw from the perceived dangers of urban areas are also predicated on the pursuit of a neighbourhood ideal, and freedom from danger is usually central to this ideal. This paper critically reconsiders these propositions by examining news reports and media narratives surrounding the nature of homicidal violence occurring within such developments. We have analysed fifty news reports from the last decade that address murder committed inside gated communities. In our analysis of these reports we suggest that attempts to neutralise danger in high crime societies are by no means guaranteed—even via the most strenuous efforts at deploying walls, gates and guards. Building on the arguments of Low (2003) and Zedner (2003), we suggest that demands for security are not only unending but that an outward-facing orientation that positions risk outside gated neighbourhoods is a denial of the continued danger of intimate and other forms of violence within communities and households behind gates. In this context the move to enclosure is more than a pragmatic attempt to defend against threat; it appears to reflect the impotence of efforts associated with addressing deep ontological insecurities. Studies continue to record high levels of fear in gated developments, and highly gendered risks of violence continue to be a part of the social reality of the segregated neighbourhood.

Securitization of the Troubled Afghan Peace Process and the Role of Pakistan

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-97
Author(s):  
Lubna Sunawar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
Copenhagen School ◽  
Securitization Theory ◽  
Fundamental Shift

Following the 9/11 attacks, the national security policies — notably of the Western nations — have taken a fundamental shift towards viewing vulnerable and unstable states, such as Afghanistan, as security threats. The strategic interference of the United States and its allies, for state-building in Afghanistan, not only failed in achieving its intended outcomes but also brought untold suffering and severe repercussions to the Afghan people. The major powers involved in the post-9/11 war against terror in Afghanistan — particularly the United States — had to bear heavy costs in terms of capital, materials, and lives. Being a neighbor of Afghanistan and a responsible state committed to peace in the region, Pakistan has made genuine and consistent efforts to promote a peace process that is Afghan-owned and Afghan-led, in order to bring sustainable peace and stability to Afghanistan. Using the post 9/11 U.S. mission as an example, this article analyzes how the securitization of development has affected the peace process in Afghanistan. The securitization theory of the Copenhagen School is used as a basis to explain the dynamics of the peace process (led by the United States) with the Taliban.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-10
Author(s):  
Elaine Allen Lechtreck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Southern States ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Martin Luther King

The introduction includes Bible verses cited by ministers to defend segregation and verses to oppose segregation. There are slices of the history of the United States, the Civil Rights Movement, and African American history. The southern states, where white ministers confronted segregation, are identified. The term “minister” is explained as well as the variety of labels given these ministers ranging from “Liberal,” Progressive,” “Neo-Orthodox,” “Evangelical Liberal,” “open conservative,” ‘Last Hurrah of the Social Gospel Movement” to “Trouble Maker,” “Traitor, “ “Atheist,” “Communist,” “N_____ Lover.” Rachel Henderlite, the only woman minister mentioned in the book, is identified. Synopses of the book’s seven chapters are included. Comments by historians David Chappell, Charles Reagan Wilson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ernest Campbell, and Thomas Pettigrew are cited.

scholarly journals Testing the inescapable network of mutuality: Albert Luthuli, Martin Luther King Jr and the challenges of post-liberation South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan A. Boesak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The United States ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Faith Commitment ◽  
The World ◽  
Ethical Stance ◽  
Martin Luther King

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, 50 years ago on 04 April 1968, has been recalled in the United States with memorial services, conferences, public discussions and books. In contrast, the commemoration in 2017 of the death of Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli, 50 years ago on December 1967, passed almost unremarked. That is to our detriment. Yet, these two Christian fighters for freedom, in different contexts, did not only have much in common, but they also left remarkably similar and equally inspiring legacies for South Africa, the United States and the world in the ways they lived their lives in complete faith commitment to ideals and ways of struggle that may guide us in the ongoing struggles to make the world a more just, peacable and humane place. For South African reflections on our ethical stance in the fierce, continuing struggles for justice, dignity and the authenticity of our democracy, I propose that these two leaders should be considered in tandem. We should learn from both. This article engages Martin Luther King Jr’s belief in the ‘inescapable network of mutuality’, applies it to the struggle for freedom in South Africa and explores the ways in which South Africans can embrace these ethical ideals in facing the challenges of post-liberation.

scholarly journals Kenneth Burke: Pioneer of Ecocriticism

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURENCE COUPE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
North American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Kenneth Burke ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Know How ◽  
Anxiety Of Influence ◽  
De Man

Nearly every handbook of critical theory acknowledges Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) to be the twentieth-century North American critic who was most ahead of his time. Yet he seems to have been so ambitious that we still do not know how to place him. Indeed, it would require the space of a whole book to trace the extensive but scarcely documented impact which he has had. Concepts for which many other critics became famous may be traced back to him: ‘‘the order of words’’ (Frye); ‘‘the rhetoric of fiction’’ (Booth); ‘‘blindness and insight’’ (De Man); ‘‘narrative as a socially symbolic act’’ (Jameson); ‘‘the anxiety of influence’’ (Bloom). Indeed, it may well be that very anxiety which has led so many contemporary critics to repress his memory. But there is a change in the critical climate, corresponding to the global. This article is written in the hope that Burke will shortly be recognized as the first critic systematically to analyse culture and literature from an ecological perspective. As the dating of our epigraph indicates, he initiated this project over half a century before the rise of ecocriticism in the United States. Moreover, this was no passing phase for him; his whole career may be understood as a profound experiment in green thinking.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Azaransky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The World ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
Independence Movements

The introduction describes a group of black Christian intellectuals and activists who looked abroad, even in other religious traditions, for ideas and practices that could fuel a racial justice movement in the United States. They envisioned an American racial justice movement akin to independence movements that were gaining ground around the world. The American civil rights movement would be, as Martin Luther King Jr., later described it, “part of this worldwide struggle.”

Xodus Musings: Reflections on Womanist Tar Baby Theology

1993 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-44
Author(s):  
Garth Baker-Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The United States ◽  
Righteous Indignation ◽  
Martin Luther King

“As heretical as it may seem, those who experience the boot of fierce power on their throats do not envision Jesus as anything but full of righteous indignation for the injustice visited them in the name of Jesus. So, the historical Nat Turner and all of his psycho-symbolic ancestors still living inside of black men look to Jesus as the Eschatological One, coming to set things aright. Since Martin Luther King and Malcom X could not change the destructive, oppressive ways of the United States, Jesus will.”

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document