Violence: The Anthropological Theories Of Violence

Throughout time, violence has been a persistent part of society. Each person has some contact with violence, whether they are the victim, the perpetrator, or both. The culture of a certain group of people emphasizes and explains these violent actions in different ways. Violence can be defined from an anthropological perspective too, but this definition often varies from the one held by the general public. While violence is sometimes perceived as an uncommon occurrence, it is actually much more persistent within society. Through a series of interviews with university students, I found that their definitions of violence varied somewhat from the anthropological perspective of violence. However, most of their explanations were quite similar. Specifically, …show more content…
This explanation is common both to the interviews and the anthropological perspective of violence. One of my interviewees, Person B, described certain social structures that are more privileged, so violence is less a result of being a member of them. They included categories such as Christian, male, white, rich, and able bodied. This is a core principle of the anthropological study of violence as well. The article by Paul Famer described a similar situation in Haiti. The story of Acéphie, a woman living in poverty who became the mistress of a rich man and died of AIDS, is a primary example of the ways that certain social structures make people more likely to become victims of violence. Acéphie’s decisions were entirely impacted by her situation as a poor woman: “I looked around and saw how poor we all were, how the old people were finished…. What would you have me do? It was a way out, that’s how I saw it” (qtd. in Farmer 265). Acéphie's situation was highly dependent upon her social standing, so her choice really did not actually include many options at all. Especially when considering her family’s poverty and her identity as a woman, Acéphie became the victim of structural violence. She was much more likely to be the victim of violence because of her position in society. This relates to the comment from my interviewee, showing how both this university student and the anthropological ideas about …show more content…
I found this similarity interesting because it was a core part of the explanations of violence for everyone. In anthropological studies of violence, there has been some discussion of other types of violence that are not just physical altercations. One example of this is the story of Chouchou. The military coup in Haiti created “anger…soon followed by sadness, then fear…” (Farmer 269). This mental fear created by the military was put into physical action when Chouchou was beaten for a remark on public transportation near an out-of-uniform officer. However, even after his beating, the emotional violence caused by the fear and paranoia of the government’s physical violence remained with Chouchou. The violence was not just physical, but “…he lived in fear of a second arrest…and his fears proved to be well-founded” (Farmer 270). While physical violence was certainly involved in Chouchou’s situation, it permeated a lingering fear in his mind of his future arrest. As explained in the anthropological definition of violence, this aspect of violence is important and noticeable as well. Chouchou certainly experienced physical violence, but there was more than just the physical in his situation. His fear and paranoia, even before his attack, are examples of mental violence as committed by the Haitian military coup. Chouchou