Key research themes
1. How do structural and everyday forms of violence manifest invisibly and accumulate over time to impact marginalized communities?
This theme investigates the concept of slow, structural, and everyday violence, emphasizing their cumulative, often invisible impacts that unfold gradually across time and space. It explores how environmental degradation, systemic social inequalities, and institutional neglect operate as forms of violence that are frequently unrecognized or normalized, leading to profound social and health consequences especially for marginalized populations. Research in this area underscores the need to unveil these hidden violences to enable effective resistance and transformative social change.
2. What roles do social, cultural, and institutional contexts play in shaping interpersonal and symbolic dimensions of everyday violence?
This theme examines the social and symbolic processes underpinning interpersonal violence and its embedding within cultural, institutional, and historical contexts. It highlights how everyday violence is socially patterned, intersecting with identities, power relations and institutions, and often involves normative practices that obscure or justify violence—ranging from domestic settings to educational institutions. The research stresses the importance of recognizing connections between different violence forms, the sociocultural meanings attached to violence, and challenges to dominant narratives that marginalize victims’ experiences.
3. How do cultural representations and mediated experiences influence societal perceptions and individual enactments of violence?
This theme explores the cultural production, mediation, and representation of violence—through media, entertainment, and popular culture—and their effects on normalization, desensitization, and legitimization of violence in society. It examines portrayals in video games, film, and public discourse that shape individuals’ understandings and behaviors, as well as the politically and historically contingent definitions of violence that inform collective responses and social norms.
