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Poverty, Systemic Violence & Conflict Understanding and modeling economic inequality as structural violence
Dr. Michael Loadenthal
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Dr. Norma K. & Donald J. Stone Fellow, Center for the Study of Ethics & Contemporary Moral Problems ExecuGve Director, Peace & JusGce Studies AssociaGon | Professor of Sociology & Social JusGce, Miami University
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[email protected] | @mloadenthal | gmu.academia.edu/MichaelLoadenthal |
When we think of violence,
we think of…
…but what about…
Sociological models for understanding inequality [Structural] funcConalism: ì
All parts of an interconnected system (including poverty) work to stabilize another part. ì
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Therefore poverty is not inherently destabilizing or undesirable
People have the ability to rise in class as the result of desire and hard work ì
Presumes that the social order has sorted those most qualified into privileged posiGons
Marx’s Conflict Theory: Economic acGvity and social straGficaGon (under capitalism) privileges the owners of capital and causes workers to be dependent
“…when one husband beats his wife there is a clear case of personal violence, but when one million husbands keep one million wives in ignorance there is structural violence. Correspondingly, in a society where life expectancy is twice as high in the upper as in the lower classes, violence is exercised even if there are no concrete actors one can point to.” (Galtung, structural violence, 1969)
“Violence that kills slowly [versus] violence that kills quickly…violence that is anonymous [versus] violence that has an author”
“Structural violence is violence with no personal or direct actor...Direct violence is commiPed by known enCCes”
“…those aspects of culture… exemplified by religion and ideology, language and art…that can be used to jusCfy or legiCmize direct or structural violence…Cultural violence makes direct and structural violence look, even feel, right—or at least not wrong.” (Galtung, cultural violence, 1990)
A Simple Typology of Violence?
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Causal flow of violence
Poverty as Conflict [False] PresumpCons ì
Poverty is an intractable form of conflict
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AlleviaGon of poverty à ending poverty
Local Reality (in CincinnaC) ì
Child poverty rate is 2nd highest in naCon
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Nearly 1/3 of residents are below poverty line
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Local poverty rate nearly twice naConal average
Our Challenge
Based on: (Galtung 1964, 1985; Lederach 1997, 2005)
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To provide a useful, theoreGcally-‐engaged model for understanding poverty as a structural challenge
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Propose and advance methods of engagement that prefigure alternaGve socio-‐economic relaGonships
Pervasive Structural Violence ì Structural violence is embedded and
obscured in social, poliGcal and economic structures:
ì 2.5 billion people live on
