Sociology of Violence

The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre.
              The question is which side organized the “snipers’ massacre.” This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre.
          The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protesters. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts from mass media and social media in different countries(some 150 gigabytes), news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters’ deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the “Euromaidan.” This study includes two video appendixes.
            This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of “snipers” targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan “snipers” and spotters in many of these buildings. The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

This paper seeks to examine the relation between democracy and violence. It will first offer an historical overview of the emergence of democracy in relation to three major political events: the English civil war from 1640-1660; the American war of independence and the drafting of the Bill of Rights; and the French Revolution. It will propose that, apart from the fact that each of these struggles was marked by large-scale and protracted violence, they also shared a common discourse – the discourse of rights, understood proprietorially. The paper will argue that the emergence of democracy as articulated through this discourse of proprietorial rights was, in turn, closely related to the emergence of the contemporary form of the nation-state, and that, consequently, it is founded on a paradox: the discourse of the nation (or nationalism) has been historically an exclusivist one, while the discourse of democracy seeks, by definition, to be inclusive. It will argue that the colonial moment served on the one hand, to disseminate the discourses of nationalism and democracy; while on the other, it complicated the paradoxical relation between them further, when the discourse of rights (integral to both) often emphasized community rights over individual rights, at least in colonial South Asia. The contours of community, then and since, have been overwhelmingly determined by the personal law system and the communal patriarchates. Given that, this paper will argue that the tensions between the exclusivism of such communalisms and the inclusivism of the democratic discourse leads inevitably to the production of cultures of violence. It will conclude by questioning the sustainability of a rights-based understanding of democracy.

Рецензія на перший український (і східнослов'янський) переклад класика антиколоніалізму Франца Фанона. В огляді розглянуто як конструктивні аспекти Фанонової візії соціальної емансипації та солідарності, так і проблематичні тези, які віддаляють Фанонову апологію практики від марксистської політичної теорії.

Abstract: What accounts for low-intensity intergroup violence? In this paper, we explore the micro-level determinants of low-intensity sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, which has marked the post-1998 peace agreement period. We use original cross-sectional time series violence data for the 2005-2012 period at a disaggregated sub-national level, the ward, and a wide variety of social and political indicators. In particular, we assess the impact of within-ward ethnic composition, on the one hand, and the ethnic composition of neighboring wards, on the other. We find that the number of intergroup violent events peak in wards where there is parity between groups, and in predominantly Catholic (Protestant) wards that border predominantly Protestant (Catholic) wards. The rationale is that violence takes place where groups have both opportunities to perpetrate sectarian violence and strategic incentives to do it. The paper makes several contributions: it demonstrates that violence is ...

En este trabajo nos proponemos discutir la relación entre desigualdad y violencia para el caso de Venezuela. Si bien una vasta literatura ha establecido una estrecha vinculación entre ambas variables, en el caso venezolano, donde durante los últimos años los indicadores sociales han mejorado sustancialmente a la par de que se disparan las tasas de homicidios, esta asociación parece discutible. A partir de nuestro trabajo de campo en dos barrios caraqueños con alto grado de violencia armada y en una cárcel del centro del país, sugerimos que las políticas sociales focalizadas, aunque han mejorado las condiciones de vida de los grupos sociales desventajados, han contribuido también con la aparición de nuevas brechas sociales dentro de las clases populares, diferenciando entre sectores que han logrado mejores posiciones y otros que se quedan relegados. Además, aun contando con mayores ingresos y circulación de dinero, persistirían asimetrías importantes en relación con otros capitales, como las relaciones sociales o los capitales culturales y políticos. Estas nuevas desigualdades, refractarias a las políticas de inclusión y a las formas de medición de la distancia social, permitirían no sólo explicar la violencia intraclase que ha crecido en estos años, sino dar cuenta de nuevas formas de organización  social y nuevos clivajes que afectan a las clases populares.

Points out how religion is power; power will be used by others--even the non-religious; when things go awry, then, religion is then blamed, often by the same ones who have exploited its power. This calls for critical and wary analysis of the rhetorical use of religion as a pawn, followed by its being blamed as a scapegoat.  Published in The Destructive Power of Religion; Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, edited by J. Harold Ellens (4 volumes, Westport/London: Praeger Publishers, 2004), Vol. 2, 265-83.

"When I Wear My Alligator Boots examines how the lives of dispossessed men and women are affected by the rise of narcotrafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. In particular, the book explores a crucial tension at the heart of the “war on drugs”: despite the violence and suffering brought on by drug cartels, for the rural poor in Mexico’s north, narcotrafficking offers one of the few paths to upward mobility and is a powerful source of cultural meanings and local prestige.

In the borderlands, traces of the drug trade are everywhere: from gang violence in cities to drug addiction in rural villages, from the vibrant folklore popularized in the narco-corridos of Norteña music to the icon of Jesús Malverde, the “patron saint” of narcos, tucked beneath the shirts of local people. In When I Wear My Alligator Boots, the author explores the everyday reality of the drug trade by living alongside its low-level workers, who live at the edges of the violence generated by the militarization of the war on drugs. Rather than telling the story of the powerful cartel leaders, the book focuses on the women who occasionally make their sandwiches, the low-level businessmen who launder their money, the addicts who consume their products, the mules who carry their money and drugs across borders, and the men and women who serve out prison sentences when their bosses' operations go awry."

Critical incidents often result in amplified social solidarity among the members of a traumatized community. Some argue this solidarity accelerates recovery and supportive social environments decrease the likelihood of PTSD and other health problems after traumatic events. However, little research investigates if social solidarity influences wellbeing independent from the social support that accompanies heightened solidarity. That is, does feeling attached to a group protect one from negative events even if social support ...

The links between social constructions of sexuality and gender are theoretically and politically problematic. A contemporary social movement understanding of violence against gay men and lesbians as ‘homophobic’ suggests a solid basis for coalitionist action. But important aspects of the imposition of gender conformity are a common thread in the experience of female, male and transsexual victims and the motives

Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich aus prozesssoziologischer Sicht mit der Frage, wie Gewalt in sozialen Situationen möglich wird und aufrechterhalten werden kann. Er schließt an die von Randall Collins entwickelte Mikrosoziologie der Gewalt an, die emotionale Hindernisse gewalttätigen Handelns in sozialen Interaktionen betont. In einer Reinterpretation der Massenerschießungen von Józefów (1942) wird untersucht, wie sich eine Situationsdynamik entfalten konnte, im Zuge derer die Täter in der Lage waren, ihren Tötungsauftrag in unmittelbarer Interaktion mit ihren Opfern zu erfüllen. Das Erklärungsangebot für diese aus mikrosoziologischer Sicht unwahrscheinliche Dynamik eines über Stunden andauernden Tötens liegt in der Identifikation eines besonderen Prozessmusters: der organisierten Plötzlichkeit dieses Geschehens. Diese stellt eine Dominanztechnik dar, um die Ausübung von Gewalt trotz emotionaler Widerstände sicherzustellen, und lässt Gewalt unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen als organisierbar erscheinen. / This article develops a process-sociological perspective on how violence is brought about and maintained in social situations. This approach accommodates the core argument of Randall Collins’ microsociology of violence, which stresses the existence of emotional obstacles to violent action in face-to-face encounters. In a re-examination of the mass shootings of Józefów in 1942, the article investigates the unfolding of a situation in which perpetrators were able to comply over hours with the order to kill victims at close distance. The explanation offered for the dynamics of mass shootings despite their microsociological improbability refers to a special pattern of social process: the organized suddenness of unfolding events. This pattern indicates a specific technique of domination inducing violence despite the existence of emotional obstacles and demonstrates that violence under certain conditions can be organized.

“We possess art lest we perish of the truth.”
Friedrich Nietzche

“Abolish art, abolish daily life abolish the separation between art and daily life.”  This is what the Surrealist movement swore upon as they rallied for the segregation between dream and reality to be abolished in favor of an absolute reality that intertwined art and reality. On 20th of April 1999 this surrealist notion took a more literal form in the city of Columbine in Colorado in the United States. Two teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, took upon the roles of Mickey and Mallory from the 1994 Oliver Stone film Natural Born Killers. To Klebold and Harris, the two protagonists became a representation of redemption claiming their rightful place as the undisputable heroes of the story. Leaving 13 people dead and 24 wounded, the twosome scripted an hour-long tragedy that became the beacon of teenage violence in America. Committing a suicide in the library as the grand finale, the perpetrators created a real-life Shakespearean tragedy. “Directors will be fighting over this story”, Klebold gushes in one of the Basement Tapes. And how right he was.

One of these portrayals was Gus Van Sant’s Elephant – a film titled after an Alan Clarke short film from 1989 depicting “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Released four years after the massacre in 2003, Van Sant created an eerie, dream-like portrayal of the events. Shot in a cinéma vérité style, the film follows the mundane everyday life of an American high school before the massacre takes place in order to capture “the messy complexities of reality.”

This dissertation focuses on the fictional portrayal of the Columbine High School massacre depicted in Elephant in relation to the cinematic motives of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. I will discuss the surrealist notion of the intertwinement of art and reality in relation to the rise of digitalization of the contemporary society. The concept of a late-modern tragedy was originated “at the threshold where illusion is mistaken for reality, and identities are perceived as authentic forms of belonging”, as Franco Berardi puts it in his book Heroes.  The virtual realities created communities that lacked the sense of humanity and the idea of a homeland was increasingly diminishing. Thus, a sense of isolation was created. I will look at this sense of isolation as a symptom of a modern tragedy that Columbine was in relation to the representation of the perpetrators in Elephant. Through the positioning of the camera, the director immerses the viewer within the events – placing himself and the viewer within the walls of a reenactment of the tragedy. The film introduces the audience to several different characters by following them around the corridors of the school. In an interview with the Guardian, Van Sant expresses his desire for multiple interpretations of the film: “Modern-day cinema takes the form of a sermon. You don't get to think, you only get to receive information. This film is not a sermon. The point of the film is not being delivered to you from the voice of the filmmaker. Hopefully, there are as many interpretations as there are viewers." However, the director immerses himself within the film through the use of the cinematography and visual references. His portrayal of the perpetrators dramatically differs from other cinematic adaptations of the massacre so a question must be presented: is he romanticizing the tragedy? What is Van Sant leaving out and is he embedding the film with his own agenda?

Today, it is hard to believe that some ten years ago Grozny lay in ruins. The broad avenues, the well-lit streets with carefully sculptured flower beds, the impressive contours of the shiny skyscrapers, dominating the city center, along with the grand mosque called “The Heart of Chechnya”  – everything in Grozny seems to be grand, luxurious and peaceful, with little reminiscences of the recent atrocities. This is by no means a miracle – but, rather, a result of Russia’s intense collaboration and financial support in rebuilding and re-creating Grozny as the symbol of unification and reconciliation. In other words, the project of Grozny’s reconstruction is an attempt to show that war is unequivocally over, and that violence has left Chechnya for good.
There is certainly no need to say that were this really the case, no grand architectural statements would be required to prove it. And while we, indeed, may not see violence in modern Chechnya, the new urban landscape of Grozny makes the case for asking what violence actually is – or, rather, what do we consider violence?

2017 publizierte Michael Stausberg einen Artikel über die unterschiedlichen Verwendungsweisen der Begriffe des «Sakralen» und des «Heiligen» bei Autoren wie Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Roger Caillois, Nathan Söderblom und Rudolf Otto. 1 Darin widmete er Roger Caillois und dem Collège de Sociologie einen eigenen Abschnitt. 2 Hierbei kritisierte Stausberg insgesamt bezüglich der Definition des «Sakralen» in den Schriften von Caillois und Bataille aus der Zeit des Collège, dass nirgends eine klare Definition dessen gegeben wird, was sie unter diesem Begriff verstanden. 3 Dennoch schließt er den Abschnitt mit dem Postulat: «Während Caillois später den Krieg als die Stelle der Emergenz des Sakralen interpretierte, verlor Bataille sein Interesse in sakraler Soziologie.» 4 Stausberg selbst gibt keinen Beleg für diese Aussage an, wodurch die Argumentation zweifelhaft wirkt. Wenn nicht einmal klar ist, was Bataille unter sakraler Soziologie verstand, woraus ergibt sich die Schlussfolgerung, er habe sein Interesse an ihr verloren? Ziel des vorliegenden Artikels ist es: (1) Zu rekonstruieren, was Bataille während der Zeit des Collège de Sociologie 1937-1939 unter sakraler Soziologie verstand und (2) Zu überprüfen, ob Bataille tatsächlich in seinen Schriften nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg das Interesse an diesem Zugang verloren hat. Für den Nachweis werden exemplarisch zwei Schriften der Periode der Nachkriegszeit zu Grunde gelegt: (1) La part maudite (1949) und (2) L´Erotisme (1957). I. Bataille im gegenwärtigen wissenschaftliche Diskurs Bevor näher darauf eingegangen wird, was Bataille unter sakraler Soziologie verstand, lohnt es sich, einen kurzen Blick in einige Publikationen zu werfen, die in den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten erschienen sind und dem Werk des Mitbegründers des Collège de Sociologie eine Bedeutung in gegenwärtigen wissenschaftlichen Fachdiskursen zuschreiben. Die folgenden Ausführungen beanspruchen keine Vollständigkeit, sondern beabsichtigen lediglich einige wenige problematische 1 Stausberg Michael, The sacred, the holy, the numinous-and religion: on the emergence and early history of a

DANGERS AND RISKS OF OVEREXPOSURE IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY: REFLECTIONS ON CYBERVIOLENCE

The work reflects about the cyberviolence as a result of the overexposure of individuals in the information society using four arguments: (1) the innocent use of the Communication and Information Technologies (CIT); (2) the deepening of the loneliness feeling of the individuals; (3) the explicitness of the sexual being in the cyberspace; and (4) the ideation of the anonymity of the attacker and the anarchy of the cyberspace. It shows to the responsibility of the people about the ethic, safe and efficient use of technology resources for virtual sociability in the information society.
KEYWORDS: Information society. Cyberviolence. Communication and Information Technologies. Virtual sociability.

Neuere Gewalttheorien haben mit Nachdruck die besondere Beachtung von Gewaltsituationen eingefordert. Die dabei entstandenen Arbeiten sind insofern tatsächlich innovativ gewesen, als sie einen neuen und präzisen Blick auf das Gewaltgeschehen selbst und die beteiligten Akteure hervorbrachten. Allerdings, so unser Argument, ging dies mit entscheidenden Blickverengungen einher. Um nun die produktive Analyse von Gewaltsituationen weiterzuführen, zugleich jedoch ihre ebenfalls beobachtbaren Engführungen aufzuheben, plädieren wir – unter Rückgriff auf klassische Theorien – für ein kultursoziologisches Verständnis sozialer Situationen. Dieses hilft insbesondere Gewaltsituationen in einer Weise zu verstehen, die der Eigenlogik von Situationen Rechnung trägt, dabei jedoch sensibel ist für Kontextualisierungen und Deutungsleistungen von Akteuren in diesen (und in immer wieder neuen) Situationen.
Zum Vorgehen. Zunächst diskutieren werden die situationstheoretischen Annahmen von zwei einflussreichen Ansätzen der neueren Gewaltforschung diskutiert: erstens die im Umfeld der selbsternannten „Gewaltinnovateure“ um Trutz von Trotha entstandenen Texte, sowie zweitens die Arbeiten von Randall Collins. Dabei versuchen wir zu zeigen, wie deren Analysen und Ansätze zwar aufschlussreich sind, sie aber wenig Handwerkszeug für eine Situationshermeneutik anbieten, um die kulturellen Gehalte von Gewaltsituationen zu erschließen.
Deshalb werden im Anschluss die situationstheoretischen Arbeiten von Goffman, Bahrdt und Sofsky diskutiert. Kurz gesagt wird mit diesen Autoren darauf verwiesen, dass auch Situationen von Deutungsleistungen, Rahmungen und symbolischen Handlungen geprägt sind und insofern genuin kulturelle Gehalte aufweisen. Situationen verweisen über diese kulturellen Gehalte über den Moment hinaus. Sie haben eine Vorgeschichte, etwa indem situiertes Handeln unter Rückgriff auf unseren Wissensvorrat geschieht, und sie haben Folgen, indem sich situationsgebundene Deutungsschemata und ein entsprechendes Handlungsrepertoire verfeinern können.
Insofern ermöglicht der Blick auf die spezifische Sequenzialität und sinnhafte Verknüpfung einzelner Gewaltsituationen die Rekonstruktion von Gewaltdynamiken und soll von uns abschließend unternommen werden. Ausgehend von der spezifischen Typik fußballbezogener Gewaltsituationen wird gezeigt, wie sich in und durch diese die gewaltbezogenen Deutungsschemata der Akteur/innen verändern. Diese Veränderungen haben wiederum Einfluss auf die Wahrnehmung und das Agieren in folgenden Gewaltepisoden. Damit einher geht eine Professionalisierung sowohl der Gewaltausübung wie der Situationsbewältigung. Zugleich wird deutlich, dass die Art und Intensität der Gewaltausübung beeinflusst wird von szenespezifischen (Gewalt- und Loyalitäts-)Normen. Schließlich wird gezeigt, welche weitreichenden Folgen Gewalterfahrungen haben auf die Wahrnehmung von und das Verhalten in ganz alltäglichen Situationen.

El de Las Hurdes ha sido, desde sus primeras apariciones documentales, un territorio en disputa. Bajo la jurisdicción feudal de la vecina villa salmantina de La Alberca, los hurdanos se han visto sometidos a un largo proceso de dominación política y violencia física legitimadas por diversos artefactos culturales: legislativos, en el caso de las Ordenanzas del título, o literarios, cuyo hito fundacional no es otro que Las Batuecas del duque de Alba de Lope de Vega. Esta breve Historia de la violencia simbólica ejercida sobre la comarca cacereña de Las Hurdes culmina con el famoso documental de Luis Buñuel, Las Hurdes. Tierra sin pan, rodado y estrenado en 1933. Un muy extenso arco cronológico de la opresión que el presente artículo pretende analizar con las herramientas que le presta la geografía cultural y otras derivaciones de los spatial studies, último paradigma del estudio de las literaturas comparadas.

The subject of this article is the military institution, with particular reference to the training and the military culture. The approach to the subject is through the results of micro-sociological research, which mostly refer to the conceptual instruments of symbolic interactionism, and through the first results of a long ethnographic research. 
The present study shows a correlation between the training model of the military and episodes of sadistic and uncontrolled violence and torture, perpetrated by social actors trained on the basis of that model.

الثأر نمط من أنماط ممارسة العنف الأولى الذى يحدث بين البشر من منطلق الحفاظ على توازن المكانة والقوة بين البشر والذى يظل مرهونا بتحقيق السلام والعدل الاجتماعى بين جماعات البشر. انه الشكل الأولى للعنف الذى يستوجب الرد ويعيد الأمور الى نصابها . وهو العنف الذى يقترن بالحياة القبلية بأعرافها السابقة على فكرة  وجود الدولة وفقا لنظرية العقد الإجتماعى. هذه الظاهرة مرتبطة بمفهوم الشرف فى مجتمعات البادية بالمنطقة العربية . ويحاول هذا المقال أن يحلل طبيعة الثأر فى المجتمعات العربية  والأسباب الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والسياسية لاستمرار ممارسات الثأر وإعادة انتاجه فى عالمنا المعاصر، وأسباب فشل الدولة الحديثة التى تأسست فى العالم العربى باعلائها لسيادة القانون فى أن تقضى على حوادث الثأر. والمقال يستند الى قراءة نقدية لدراسة أحمد أبوزيد عن الثأر.

Italian Futurism praised violence as a means of leaving behind imitations of the past in order to project itself most efficiently into the future.
ISIS overcomes the postmodern, pessimistic futurism of “cyberpunk” and links itself to the optimistic attitude that was common in Italian Futurism in the early twentieth century. ISIS returns to modernism. Cyberpunk stands for the exhaustion of the industrial economy while Italian Futurism is the origin of an optimistic kind of Science Fiction.

To speak the ‘language of state violence’ is for penal abolitionists to insist that irrespective of the conditions, architecture, or general resources available, the prison will always be a place that systematically generates suffering, harm and death.  Understanding prisons as a modus operandi of state violence may help abolitionists gain political momentum, for it leads to focus on both ‘institutional’ and ‘structural’ violence.  Ultimately Speaking the language of state violence provides a name for penal abolitionists to mobilise around and makes connections between the prison and social inequities.

Focusing exclusively on external forces risks producing an over-generalized account of a ubiquitous neoliberalism, which insufficiently accounts for the profusion of local variegations that currently comprise the neoliberal project as a series of articulations with existing political economic circumstances. Although neoliberal economics were initially promoted in the global south through the auspices of structural adjustment programs designed by the International Financial Institutions, powerful global south elites were only too happy to oblige. Neoliberalism frequently reveals opportunities for well-connected government officials to informally control market and material rewards, allowing them to easily line their own pockets. It is in this sense of the local appropriation of neoliberal ideas that scholars must go beyond conceiving of ‘neoliberalism-in-general’ as a singular and fully realized policy regime, ideological form, or regulatory framework, and work towards conceiving a plurality of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’ with particular characteristics arising from mutable geohistorical outcomes that are embedded within national, regional, and local process of market-driven socio-spatial transformation. What constitutes ‘actually existing’ neoliberalism in Cambodia as distinctly Cambodian is the ways in which the patronage system has allowed local elites to co-opt, transform, and (re)articulate neoliberal reforms through a framework that ‘asset strips’ public resources, thereby increasing peoples’ exposure to corruption, coercion, and violence. It is to such an 'articulation agenda' that this article attends, as in seeking to provide a more nuanced reading to recent work on neoliberalism in Cambodia by outlining some of its salient characteristics, I reveal a more empirical basis to theorizations of ‘articulated neoliberalism’.

This paper focuses on the urban graffiti painted with a political message by different
movements of the Italian political radicalism in the cities of Rome, Florence, Massa,
Carrara, Verona and Udine. For the purpose of this article, during the period from June
2011 to June 2012, a total of 165 graffiti have been photographed, of which 83 painted by
neo-fascist groups, 72 by extreme left groups and 10 by anarchist groups. These three
macro communities, made of different subgroups, emerged as the most active in expressing
their antagonism towards the parliamentary parties with their graffiti that combine semantic
(words) and semiotic (images) elements. An analysis of the collected graffiti’s language
form, meaning and context allows for the identification of the variety of styles of
communication adopted by the different political antagonisms and the different contents of
their communication through graffiti as well as the key elements of their political identities.
Key words: political radicalism, graffiti, linguistics

Gender research, although becoming increasingly present in Egyptology, is only rarely found in studies of war and violence in ancient Egypt. Adopting gender theory in researching military violence in New Kingdom Egypt can provide us with additional insight in understanding the possible meanings behind the practice of genital mutilation in war. The practice of removal of the phalli of the enemies in war is attested in ancient Egypt for the first time in Early Dynastic Period (Narmer palette). However, larger number of attestations, with more details and information on this war practice, are of Ramesside date (Medinet Habu temple and Athribis stela). The principal problem is that doubts have been raised on the identification of the cut off body parts as some authors argue that it were not phalli, but phalli-cases which were cut off. This paper will offer both philological and, so far not provided iconographic evidence that indeed phalli were cut off during the New Kingdom and only from the “Libyan” enemies. This is followed by discussion on the phalli cutting custom in relation to military violence and gender. Assuming the theory of gender performativity (sensu Judith Butler) the paper will explore how sexes/genders are materialized through military violence using phalli cutting as a case study. It will be argued that both gender as a performative practice and sexes/genders as body parts (cut off members) can be materialized through violence and representation.

We live in a surprisingly violent world. We experience physical assault, emotional and psychological attack, and even the intellectual violence of manipulation and indoctrination. Psychology is becoming increasingly aware not only of the prevalent violence, but also of the profoundly deleterious impact of said violence on the human mind and body; however. sociology lags behind. Socialization, or our experiences at the hands of agents of socialization, is a key concept in sociology. Every introductory sociology text that is printed devotes and entire chapter to a discussion of socialization and related concepts. However rarely, if at all, is there any indication that sociologists are aware of the profoundly deleterious impact of toxicity (violence, neglect, etc.) in the socialization process. This research note seeks to alleviate this lacuna by providing a concept, toxic socialization, by which sociologists can more readily discuss the problem of a violent socialization process.

In 1983 Benedict Anderson famously claimed that the ethnic fraternity enabled millions of people to kill, and more so to die, over the past two centuries, in the name of their perceived community. While plenty of subsequent research focused on both the ethnic and violent part of this equation, the fraternal aspect has gone almost unnoticed in mainstream academia. In contrast, male identity, although not necessarily ethnic, and links to violence has held a prominent place in feminist research.

Acknowledgement and exploration of the associations between male ethnicity identity and violence is essential to the field of ethnic and racial studies because gendered violence appears to be a crucial element of consolidating male ethnicity. If the gendered elements of ethnicity continue to be ignored, violent ethnic conflict will remain a ‘murky’ area. Supported by emerging feminist research on ethnicity and established feminist work on fraternity and violence, the following research examines one act, bride-kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan, in an attempt to explore the relatively ignored links between ethnic identity, violence and gender.

The aim of this paper is to provide a starting point for a better understanding of an alternative approach to the study of modern barbarism as proposed by Meštrović. Namely, in order to advance contemporary understanding of modern barbarism, the author calls for a social inquiry into publications about the wars in the former Yugoslavia based on how and to what extent the Vukovar Battle of 1991 is studied and perceived in international and domestic literature. This frame of reference is applied here under the scrutiny of critical theory in order to enable critical assessment of the international and domestic social inquiry into modern barbarism and to introduce less restrictive and vitally more alternative approach to its understanding. It is argued that an alternative approach should be based on the qualitative research into the personal narratives as an integral part of the comprehensive understanding of modern barbarism. Based on the surveyed literature, a debate which interprets contemporary violence and wars in the former Yugoslavia is analyzed only to conclude that it neglects to understand modern barbarism.

T he problem of violence poses such a monumental challenge that it is surprising that such an intelligent species has addressed it so inadequately. Much has happened since the publication of the first edition of this encyclopedia. The events of 11 September 2001 and their tragic aftermath have raised our security alerts to a new level and made this project even more salient and urgent. Millions have died because of structural violence. Nevertheless, millions have defeated authoritarian regimes through nonviolent struggle. Millions more -perhaps billions -have been cared for with love and affection.

This study analyzes the recruitment process of the DHKP-C. In particular, the study analyzes individual characteristics, family background, and political characteristics of the families, and explores these factors and tries to find out how they affect individual's decision to join terrorist organization. According to them, about half of the terrorists came from rural backgrounds as they were born either in a village or a farm, while 22 percent were born in towns and 30% were born in cities and suburbs. Members of terrorist organization tend to come from low-income families. Finally. the political preferences of the respondents and the conditions which facilitated the respondents to join the terrorist organization indicate that the vast majority of the respondents stated that they had connections with either leftist parties or radical leftist parties before they joined DHKP/C movement.

http://ebooks.iospress.nl/volume/understanding-terrorism-analysis-of-sociological-and-psychological-aspects

This collection of thirteen articles from the Journal of the Sind Historical Society concentrates on precolonial and colonial Sind. These articles reveal much about Sindh’s past and historically showcase the region’s broad socio-cultural spectrum. Scholarship frequently overlooks the subjects and people in this collection. In part, this oversight is due to so few libraries (both in Pakistan and around the world) having copies of the Journal of the Sind Historical Society. There are no reprints of these articles in any other book, nor has anyone reprinted them in their entirety since the 1930s and 1940s.

The articles in this book not only deepen knowledge about Sindh but also the history of Pakistan and the diversity of its people. They represent, like most research printed in the Journal of the Sind Historical Society, ‘forgotten’ chapters in both Sindhi and Pakistani history. These chapters celebrate Pakistan’s socio-cultural diversity and point toward how the histories of region and nation should be intertwined.

Gewalttätige Ausschreitungen von Fußballfans zwingen mittelbar und unmittelbar Betroffene zu Reaktionen. Sie haben informelle Erlebnis- und offizielle Polizeiberichte zur Folge, sie aktivieren sport- und strafrechtliche Interventionsinstanzen, sie erreichen mediale Resonanzen. Und je nach Reichweite der Berichterstattung und Tragweite zu erwartender Sanktionen gibt es Stellungnahmen von Fans, Fanobjekt und Fanobjektfunktionären. Diese Texte sind anlassbezogene Grenzziehungen um Legitimität, Richtung und Intensität von Fanemotionen. „Die das angerichtet haben, sind keine Saturn-Fans“, so die Feststellung eines Vereinsvorsitzenden, und ein daraufhin entstandener Slogan behauptet selbstgewiss: „Wahre Saturn-Fans sind friedlich“. Die als sportfremd verurteilte Fanaktivität führt zum virtuellen Ausschluss aus der Fangemeinschaft. Gewalt ist in dieser Perspektive etwas, das in das Geschehen rund um ein Fußballspiel von irgendwo da draußen („der Gesellschaft“) durch irgendwen („die Nicht-Fans“) hineingetragen wird. Dabei werden aber Eigensinn und Eigendynamik der Fan-Fan-objekt-Beziehung ignoriert – einer Beziehung, die Gewalt unter aufzuklärenden Umständen grundlegend einschließt.