Regimes of Violence and theTrias Violentiae

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Schinkel
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Current Regime ◽  
The People ◽  
Critical Scrutiny ◽  
Legitimate Violence ◽  
Violent Community ◽  
Forms Of Violence

In common-sense usage, violence is usually conceptualized as intentional physical harm. This makes violence identifiable, locatable, and it facilitates the governing of those identified as committing infractions upon the non-violent community. In this article it is illustrated how this conception of violence legitimates the state by blocking the state’s own foundational violence from critical scrutiny. It argues that the liberal state rests on the differentiation between active and reactive violence, whereby the latter is seen as the legitimate violence of the people against violent infractions committed by private individuals. The concept of a ‘regime of violence’ describes the relation between various forms of violence, i.e. their selective and differential articulation and negation. Regimes of violence constitute a way of governing conduct in the medium of violence. The current regime of violence consists of what is called a trias violentiae, which is a specific conception of the relations and translations between private violence, state violence and structural violence.

‘Three warnings and you’re out’: Banishment and precarious penality in South Africa’s informal settlements

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail Super
Keyword(s):  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
State Punishment ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Legitimate Violence

This paper asks how punitive forms of non-state punishment play out on the margins of the state, in informal (shack) settlements in South Africa. My focus is on the practice of forcing those who are suspected of certain offences to leave their homes in informal settlements. I refer to this as ‘banishment’ and argue that it is a ‘penal phenomenon’ which is intimately tied to the general precarity that residents experience on a daily basis. The paper examines the ways in which these formally illegal, but nonetheless legitimate practices, draw on and reconfigure liberal state punishment. I use my study to make a broader theoretical point about the interplay between lawful state punishment and unlawful punishment on the periphery of the state. The blurred boundaries between legal (state) violence and illegal (but nonetheless legitimate) violence are particularly ‘visible’ in situations of ‘precarious penality’ – a term that I use to describe the unstable, violent and exclusionary penality that manifests in situations of socio-economic precarity, particularly in contexts of inequality, high rates of violent crime and a delegitimated rule of law. In these circumstances ‘non-state’ punishment contributes to the construction and maintenance of group boundaries and fulfils a similar function to ‘formal’ punishment. Thus, I ask whether it makes sense to exclude ‘non-state’ public authorities which act against ‘criminality’, when asking what or who constitutes the penal field and, when measuring state punitiveness?

scholarly journals From Hate to Political Solidarity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihaela Mihai
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Solidarity ◽  
Cultural Hierarchies ◽  
Forms Of Violence

Hate is currently enjoying the status of summum malum within the common sense of constitutional democracies. Hateful acts are criminalized and hate speech tests the limits of our commitment to free expression. This chapter shifts focus away from hate speech and crime and toward the structural conditions that normalize these various verbal and physical forms of violence. Building on insights from feminist and race critical theory and the sociology of power, it points the reader’s attention to three important dimensions of structural violence only partially captured by the legal definitions of hate speech and crime: the linguistic, the emotional, and the embodied. It then sketches a proposal about the forms of political solidarity we should stimulate as prophylaxis against hate and argues that certain artworks can reveal and confront the naturalized social, political, and cultural hierarchies that underprop hate speech and acts.

Reimagining the Nation-State: Indigenous Peoples and the Making of Plurinationalism in Latin America

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROGER MERINO
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
State Transformation ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Local Resources ◽  
The People ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives ◽  
Political Foundations ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
The One

AbstractIn the last two decades, the concept of plurinationalism has appeared in discussions about nationalism, statehood and multilevel governance, being formulated as a new state model that accommodates cultural diversity within the liberal state with the aim of solving nationalistic conflicts in countries marked by profound ethnic grievances, mainly in Europe. However, these discussions have paid less attention to the meaning of plurinationalism in ex-colonial contexts, particularly in recent experiences of state transformation in Bolivia and Ecuador, where the role of indigenous peoples in the plurinational project has been crucial. To fill this gap, this article explores the legal and political foundations, challenges and local and international dynamics in the building of the plurinational model in both countries. Under a critical engagement with Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), this article argues that plurinationality from indigenous perspectives departs from multicultural liberal models associated with current European plurinational views, and addresses two challenges: a global political economy of resource extraction, and a racialized state structure working as a barrier to actual plurinational implementation. These limitations explain an intrinsic tension in the Bolivian and Ecuadorian experience: on the one hand, plurinational governments try to unify the people around the ‘national interest’ of developing extractive industries; and on the other hand, they attempt to recognize ethno-political differences that often challenge the transnational exploitation of local resources.

Worshiping Math

2019 ◽  
pp. 65-84
Author(s):  
Gary Smith ◽  
Jay Cordes
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Normal Distribution ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Fat Tails ◽  
Explanatory Variables ◽  
Good Data ◽  
Black Swans ◽  
The People ◽  
Invaluable Tool ◽  
Mining Tools

Data-mining tools, in general, tend to be mathematically sophisticated, yet often make implausible assumptions. For example, analysts often assume a normal distribution and disregard the fat tails that warn of “black swans.” Too often, the assumptions are hidden in the math and the people who use the tools are more impressed by the math than curious about the assumptions. Instead of being blinded by math, good data scientists use explanatory variables that make sense. Good data scientists use math, but do not worship it. They know that math is an invaluable tool, but it is not a substitute for common sense, wisdom, or expertise.

الشعب‎ يريد‎ اسقاط‎ النظام‎ “The People Want to Overthrow the Regime”

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-73
Author(s):  
Amy Austin Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Breaking Point ◽  
Mass Mobilization ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Security Organizations

This chapter analyzes the first wave of the revolution against Hosni Mubarak. Refuting arguments that focus on the role of the social media, or divisions among the elite, and the alleged neutrality of the Egyptian military, the chapter illustrates that it was a revolutionary coalition of the middle and lower classes that created a breaking point for the regime. Key features of this mass mobilization included the refusal of protesters to be cowed by state violence, the creation of “liberated zones” occupied by the people, “popular security” organizations that replaced the repressive security apparatus of the state, and strikes that crippled the economy in the final days of the Mubarak era. Key moments during the 18 days are described with ethnographic detail, including the unfiltered reactions of protesters to the deployment of soldiers on January 28. The revolutionary nature of the uprising is that people demanded more than just the ouster of Mubarak—they wanted to topple “the regime” by naming the names of a slew of Mubarak’s cronies to remove them from power.

scholarly journals On a Walking Tour to No Man’s Land: Brokering and Shifting Narratives of Violence in Trench Town, Jamaica

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
Alana Osbourne
Keyword(s):  
Structural Violence ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
Tour Guides ◽  
Walking Tour ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
No Man's Land ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Musical Heritage

Tourists who visit Trench Town are drawn in by the neighborhood’s rich musical heritage. They want to see the birthplace of reggae and witness the circumstances depicted in many famous Jamaican songs. Knowingly venturing into marginalized territory, into the “ghetto,” travelers expect to encounter spectacular forms of violence. Yet what the walking tour of Trench Town reveals is an experience of another kind, an excursion that exposes poverty as structural violence, and that points to the historical and political struggles that are constitutive of the area’s social fabric. In this article, drawing on an ethnographic vignette of a walking tour that starts in Bob Marley’s rehearsal grounds and ends by an empty plot locally known as “No Man’s Land,” I focus on the entanglements of violence and tourism and present the discrepancy that exists between touristic desires and the reality of the tourism commodity. This analysis reveals how residents of Trench Town simultaneously choose to address and disregard different (un)spectacular forms of violence during the tourism encounter and I argue that in so doing, local tour guides productively leverage violence to denounce and grapple with structural and historical brutalities.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW SERIES: UNCOMMON “COMMON SENSE”

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-49
Author(s):  
Akinobu Kuroda
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common

The common sense of modern times was not always “common” in the past. For example, if it is true that inflation is caused by an oversupply of money, a short supply of money must cause deflation. However logical that sounds, though, it has not been so uncommon in history that rising prices were recognized as being caused by a scarcity of currency. Even in the same period, a common idea prevailing in one historical area was not always common in another; rather, it sometimes appeared in quite the opposite direction. It is likely that the idea that a government gains from bad currencies, while traders appreciate good ones, is popular throughout the world. In the case of China, however, its dynasties sometimes intentionally issued high-quality coins without regard to their losses. East Asia shared the idea that cheap currency harms the state, while an expensive currency harms the people. This is in considerable contrast with a common image in other regions that authorities gained profits from seigniorage.

User-generated reality enforcement: Framing violence against black trans feminine people on a video sharing site

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valo Vähäpassi
Keyword(s):  
Physical Violence ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Video Sharing ◽  
Physical Attack ◽  
Trans People ◽  
The Common ◽  
Victims Of Violence ◽  
Legitimate Violence ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
The Way

While some scholars have addressed the common cultural tropes about trans people, the way media might sometimes legitimate violence against trans people, and even take part in forms of violence, has not been analysed. This is what this article sets out to do, through an examination of how a verbal and physical attack against black trans women, videotaped and uploaded on a platform for user-generated entertainment, was framed in a way which repeated the symbolic violence (reality enforcement) already at play in the physical (face-to-face) encounter. The article addresses the way this depiction of real violence, framed as entertainment, and coupled with identity invalidation both legitimizes physical violence and delegitimizes black trans feminine people as victims of violence.

Ending Violence against Women in Latin America: Feminist Norm Setting in a Multilevel Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 143-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conny Roggeband
Keyword(s):  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Latin American ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
International Convention ◽  
The Public ◽  
International Obligation ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Forms Of Violence

Latin American feminists brought up the issue of violence in the 1970s under military rule or situations of armed conflict. These contexts made feminists specifically concerned with state violence against women. Women's organizations pointed to torture and rape of political prisoners and the use of rape as a weapon of war and connected these forms of violence to deeper societal patterns of subordination and violence against women in both the private and public spheres. Processes of democratization in the region brought new opportunities to institutionalize norms to end violence against women (VAW), and in many countries feminists managed to get the issue on the political agenda. In the mid 1990s, the region pioneered international legislation on VAW that uniquely included state-sponsored violence. The Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (1994) established an international obligation for states to prevent, investigate, and punish VAW regardless of whether it takes place in the home, the community, or in the public sphere. While Latin American governments massively ratified this convention, national legislation was not brought in line with the broad scope of the international convention. This points to the complex and often contradictory dynamics of institutionalizing norms to oppose VAW in multilevel settings.

Structural Violence: A Tale of Three Women from Marginalized Communities in Bangladesh

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashrafuzzaman Khan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
Forms Of Violence

The notion of structural violations of human rights is increasingly gaining currency in international human rights arenas. Structural violence yields a complex picture of inequality in terms of social, economic, political and human rights arenas. The study intended to understand the extent of structural violence with a special reference to the state of human rights of the women of the marginalized communities Bihari, Garo and Ahmadiyya in Bangladesh. The study employed a qualitative approach, applying a case study technique that dealt with three women of these communities and aiming to substantiate structural violence in relation to human rights perspectives. The study revealed that the women of the three marginalized communities experienced diverse forms of violence, including psychological, physical, sexual, etc., that violated their human rights. There was also a failure to restore their peace and security. The theory of structural violence provides a useful framework for understanding the structural inequalities that systematically deny marginalized communities, especially women of these communities, from achieving basic human rights in their daily lives.

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