Talk:Structural violence

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment edit

  This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jadcruz. Peer reviewers: P.makakaruwang, Austinx1997.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

I am editing the following edit

in the structural violence page the following is written.

"The violence in structural violence is attributed to multiple things, including disempowerment, oppressive passive social policy, and active marginalizing policy. Generally it is believed to come from a lack of access to power to protect oneself from the detrimental effects of the economic, social, and political order."

Do all agree that violence is the result of the victims actions? This seems to depart in a relatively huge way from what this page defines as violence, hence I shall change it.

If violence is allowing oneself to be victimized we need to change the definition in the main page.

If my edit is reverted with no arguments or explanations this is what I will be forced to do in order to make the pages agree.

Additionally I have completely removed the Farmer citation as it is irrelevant where the topic "structural violence" is concerned. A medical anthropologists opinion on the matter, regardless of publishing record is irrelevant where his work has never had any relation to observing, analyzing, or predicting such violence. I would additionally argue that farmer's POV provides no insight into the popular understanding of structural violence and instead is a departure from the norm.

"In explaining how structural violence affects the health of subaltern or marginalized people Paul Farmer writes, "Their sickness is a result of structural violence: neither culture nor pure individual will is at fault; rather, historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces conspire to constrain individual agency. Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress."<sup class="citation" id="ref_<Farmer_Paul-InfIneq>1">[1]"

Finally, if this edit is reversed, you may want to consider removing structural violence from the page of violence, altering the article "violence" to conform to victim responsibility, or perhaps just writing a better and more relevant entry.

I get the point you are trying to get across, however, it is easily mistaken to be an ascription of responsibility to the 'hapless' who have violence visited upon them. The word for that is "victimized".

objection edit

I put Farmer's quote back because his work forcuses exclusively on documenting and explaining structural violence. In academia, structural violence is primarily cited with his name.

    Point taken, however, it is not as if there is no contention to farmer's views.
    I would first state that I myself am an anthropologist and would then also like to say that there are
    Sociologists and even other anthropologists of cultural studies that would and do find farmer's views 
    extreme and apologistic.  Perhaps some of these other people could be quoted?  Chomsky, Weber, et al. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]) 

explicates edit

It should be nice to note that much like Gould and biology this particular anthropologist is coming from outside his field of study and imposing views found not within research but rather opinion and personal bias.

While medical anthropology is concerned with developing models of health care and a diverse array of other things, it has never been associated with explicating theories which have been explicated elsewhere beyond the scope of the field of medical anthropology. In this way Farmers quotation seems somewhat irrelevant to me, it is merely an opinion and not a research conclusion about structural violence in and of itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

Merge edit

Structural abuse also exists and could/should be merged. See Talk:Structural abuse#Merge. Don't know much about it, but it does seem to be a minority position, though notable enough to have its own article. Community psychology would probably have something to say about this... WLU (talk) 16:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

"lysoled"? edit

Intro says: Since structural violence affects people differently in various social structures, it is very closely lysoled to social injustice.

What does that mean? Can we assume it's a typo?

Should the word "lysoled" be "related"?

75.121.35.17 (talk) 15:39, 5 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Criticism edit

Really no critic of that concept? --41.151.19.236 (talk) 19:53, 8 November 2015 (UTC)Reply


I just searched in vain for any criticism of this topic. My guess is this topic (the idea of "structural violence") is so right, so settled, so true, correct, and above reproach, so beyond falsifiability, that no criticism can be seriously considered by experts and authorities in this topic. 184.66.160.37 (talk) 22:08, 19 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Article Critique edit

Facts are backed by references (Galtung, Gilligan, Kelly, etc.), and references/citations are made clear. Needs elaboration on the effects of those in poverty, with facts and statistics about how they are affected. A section on the structural violence that takes place in the US could be helpful to put a perspective on the local effects. The links throughout the article seem to be working as expected. Jadcruz (talk) 06:08, 15 October 2016 (UTC)Reply

Cultural Violence & Wealth Class edit

Overall, I feel like this article is heading in the right direction but at the same time, is very under developed. There are many different topics such as racism, religion, culture, and wealth class; that could possibly be sections in this article. These topics will give a better background on the overall topic of structural violence. Structural violence is a very broad topic and a lot of the topics that go under this topic branches off to racism, culture discrimination, etc. What would be best for this article to get a touch on all these different branches but not go to go full depth since there are other separate articles that cover the topic. A good summary would fit best as well as a link to all the other topics to this article. Regarding the access to healthcare part in the article, it seems a bit out of place and either needs something to lead up to it or rather get re-modified or deleted. Overall, this article is headed in a good direction but there is a lot of work to be done. Keep up the good work! Austinx1997 (talk) 21:24, 1 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Homophobia edit

No mention of homophobia as structural violence? Is this omission an example of structural violence in action? Gymnophoria (talk) 13:09, 11 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Definition of Violence edit

Is it even right to call this a form of violence if it's not physical force? If it's not violence, then it's more accurately the broader term of structural abuse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.122.95.30 (talk) 04:49, 26 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Non sequitur edit

Intro reads, 'as it is avoidable, structural violence is a frequent cause of premature death or disability'. This is a non sequitur. The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premise. Many things are avoidable. Only a few of them cause death or disability. Crawiki (talk) 11:16, 11 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Wiki Education assignment: The Anthropology of Violence edit

  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 January 2024 and 23 March 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): EliasSpence84 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by EliasSpence84 (talk) 05:35, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply