Cultural Violence and the Destruction of Human Communities New Theoretical Perspectives

1. Introduction

Fatma Müge Göçek, University of Michigan and Fiona Greenland, University of Virginia

Part I: Definitions and Parameters

2. The Genocidal Pressures on Indigenous Peoples: Capitalism’s Cultural and Environmental Violence

Damien Short, School of Advanced Studies, University of London

3. Raphaël Lemkin: Genocide, Cultural Violence, and Community Destruction

Douglas Irvin-Erickson, George Mason University

4. Linguistic Genocide

Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Abo Akademi University, Finland

Part II: Epistemological Dimensions

5. The Interconnected Histories of South African and American Sociology: Knowledge in the Service of Colonial Violence

Zine Magubane, Boston College

6. Jerusalem and Violence: The transformation of secular and sacred interpretations

Mark Ayyash, Mount Royal University

7. Monumental destruction and ontological violence in the Islamic State

Fiona Greenland, University of Virginia

Part III: Spatial and Material Dimensions

8. Community Destruction, Museum Collections and the Work of Resilience

Alaka Wali, Curator of North American Anthropology, Field Museum

9. Tahrir, and The Many Faces of Violence in the Egyptian Revolution

Atef Said, University of Illinois at Chicago

10. An Unraveling Landscape: Harput and Mezre during Turkey’s Transition from Empire to Republic

Zeynep Kezer, Newcastle University

Biography

Fiona Greenland is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, USA.

Fatma Müge Göçek is Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies and the University of Michigan, USA.

"Social scientists have long understood that ontological security　is not limited to physical well-being. Symbolic and structural violence also threaten human flourishing, just as social stability can conceal the founding violence that benefits some at the expense of others. In an age of cultural destruction, this timely book explores its various modalities and sets out a new research agenda." - Dirk Moses, University of Sydney, Australia

"In this collection, editors Greenland (Univ. of Virginia) and Göçek (Univ. of Michigan) outline the importance of cultural violence in a modern world where “intra-state violence [has] left the battlefield” (p. 1). Essays offer far-ranging theoretical discussions of cultural violence, examining definitions, the production of knowledge, and the effects of cultural violence on material culture and landscape; they stand out for sustaining engagement with theory and providing case studies. Cultural violence overlaps with genocide, as the work of Raphael Lemkin has shown, and the essays here also discuss cultural violence carried out against language, art, and artifacts. Indeed, cultural violence even remakes landscapes as in Turkey after genocide, where “relentless violence permanently destroyed Harput-Mezre’s complex cultural landscapes” (p. 191). Chapters document cultural violence as a threat to indigenous peoples, the destruction carried out by ISIS, and the complicity of museums “in practices of cultural violence” (p. 143). Combining theoretical approaches and case studies, the contributors demonstrate how to employ the concept of cultural violence for understanding other forms of violence, but the sheer range of possible examples also raises questions about how to identify the boundaries of cultural violence. As a guide to the theory of cultural violence, this volume will be useful for graduate collections." - B. Lieberman, Fitchburg State University, CHOICE Library Magazine Recommended title