Structural violence

Galtung According to Johan Galtung, rather than conveying a physical image, structural violence is an "avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs." Galtung contrasts structural violence with "classical violence:" violence that is "direct," characterized by rudimentary, impermanent "bodily destruction" committed by some actor. Galtung places this as the first category of violence. In this sense, the purest form of structural violence can be understood as violence that endures with no particular beginning, and that lacks an 'actor' to have committed it. Following this, by excluding the requirement of an identifiable actor from the classical definition of violence, Galtung lists poverty (i.e., the "deprival of basic human needs") as the second category of violence and "structurally conditioned poverty" as the first category of structural violence. Structural violence and direct violence are said to be highly interdependent, including family violence, gender violence, hate crimes, racial violence, police violence, state violence, terrorism, and war. Others In his book Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, James Gilligan defines structural violence as "the increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted with the relatively lower death rates experienced by those who are above them." Gilligan largely describes these "excess deaths" as "non-natural" and attributes them to the stress, shame, discrimination, and denigration that results from lower status. He draws on Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb (i.e., The Hidden Injuries of Class, 1973), who examine the "contest for dignity" in a context of dramatic inequality. In her interdisciplinary textbook on violence, Bandy X. Lee wrote "Structural violence refers to the avoidable limitations that society places on groups of people that constrain them from meeting their basic needs and achieving the quality of life that would otherwise be possible. These limitations, which can be political, economic, religious, cultural, or legal in nature, usually originate in institutions that exercise power over particular subjects." She goes on to say that "[it] is therefore an illustration of a power system wherein social structures or institutions cause harm to people in a way that results in maldevelopment and other deprivations." who explained that structural violence can also take place in online communities. The possibility of structural violence might be questioned on the basis that it leaves those affected “with no alternatives” (Galtung 1969, 178). After all, member can leave toxic online communities and social media more generally at any time. Yet, the authors demonstrate that, for many, the friendships, intimacy, and sense of family gained on social media are emotionally significant, making it incredibly difficult for users to leave. In particular they identify three prevalent forms of structural violence in online communities and on social media: hedonic darwinism, a relational contract that facilitates the exploitation of some members for the amusement of others, clan tyranny, where higher-status users abuse their superior influence to prevent other groups from gaining recognition, authority, and voice, and minarchy, a relational structure marked by ultraminimal intervention from governors. ==Forms==

Cultural violence Cultural violence refers to aspects of a culture that can be used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence, and may be exemplified by religion & ideology, language & art, and empirical science & formal science. Cultural violence makes both direct and structural violence look or feel 'right', or at least not wrong, according to Galtung. Rossiter and Rinaldi (2018) argue that the structural elements manifest as organizational traits that enable the reconstruction of one's sense of inhumane behavior (e.g., moral justification), its deleterious effects (e.g., minimizing), the responsibility for its impact (e.g., denial), and the subject harmed (e.g., dehumanization), which leads to moral abdication and thus create an ethos of violence. One example of such traits highlighted by the authors is the social or physical distance between organizations and the broader society, which serves as a key mechanism in sustaining such violence. == Cause and effects ==

In The Sources of Social Power (1986), Michael Mann makes the argument that within state formation, "increased organizational power is a trade-off, whereby the individual obtains more security and food in exchange for his or her freedom." Siniša Malešević elaborates on Mann's argument: "Mann's point needs extending to cover all social organizations, not just the state. The early chiefdoms were not states, obviously; still, they were established on a similar basis—an inversely proportional relationship between security and resources, on the one hand, and liberty, on the other." found that black Americans had a significantly lesser chance of receiving treatment than white Americans. If biosocial understandings are forsaken when considering communicable diseases such as HIV, for example, prevention methods and treatment practices become inadequate and unsustainable for populations. Farmer therefore also states that structural forces account for most if not all epidemic diseases. Structural violence also exists in the area of mental health, where systems ignore the lived experiences of patients when making decisions about services and funding without consulting with the ill, including those who are illiterate, cannot access computers, do not speak the dominant language, are homeless, are too unwell to fill out long formal surveys, or are in locked psychiatric and forensic wards. Structural violence is also apparent when consumers in developed countries die from preventable diseases 15–25 years earlier than those without a lived experience of mental health. Solutions Farmer ultimately claims that "structural interventions" are one possible solution to such violence. However, for structural interventions to be successful, medical professionals need to be capable of executing such tasks; as stated above, though, many of professionals are not trained to do so. Medical professionals still continue to operate with a focus on individual lifestyle factors rather than general socio-economic, cultural, and environmental conditions. This paradigm is considered by Farmer to obscure the structural impediments to changes because it tends to avoid the root causes that should be focused on instead. Moreover, medical professionals can rightly note that structural interventions are not their job, and as result, continue to operate under conventional clinical intervention. Therefore, the onus falls more on political and other experts to implement such structural changes. One response is to incorporate medical professionals and to acknowledge that such active structural interventions are necessary to address real public health issues. Countries such as Haiti and Rwanda, however, have implemented (with positive outcomes) structural interventions, including prohibiting the commodification of the citizen needs (such as health care); ensuring equitable access to effective therapies; and developing social safety nets. Such initiatives increase the social and economic rights of citizens, thus decreasing structural violence. The successful examples of structural interventions in these countries have shown to be fundamental. Although the interventions have enormous influence on economical and political aspects of international bodies, more interventions are needed to improve access. Although health disparities resulting from social inequalities are possible to reduce, as long as health care is exchanged as a commodity, those without the power to purchase it will have less access to it. Biosocial research should therefore be the main focus, while sociology can better explain the origin and spread of infectious diseases, such as HIV or AIDS. For instance, research shows that the risk of HIV is highly affected by one's behavior and habits. As such, despite some structural interventions being able to decrease premature morbidity and mortality, the social and historical determinants of the structural violence cannot be omitted. ==International scope==

Petra Kelly wrote in her first book, Fighting for Hope (1984): The violence in structural violence is attributed to the specific organizations of society that injure or harm individuals or masses of individuals. In explaining his point of view on how structural violence affects the health of subaltern or marginalized people, medical anthropologist Paul Farmer writes: Holmes used examples like governmental influences of structural violence—such as how American subsidization of corn industries force Mexican farmers out of business, thereby forcing them to make the very dangerous trip across the border, where the U.S. Border Patrol hinder these migrants' chances of finding work in America, and the impact this all has on the migrants’ bodies. ==Criticism==

Katherine Hirschfield has criticized the concept of structural violence for being "increasingly outdated and poorly theorized". ==See also==