Great work today in creating your critical theory posters. I'm glad to see everyone is putting in the effort to really grapple with these complex concepts and advanced readings.
Your homework is to dig deeper into thinking about the core claims of Peace Studies scholars, in particular their analysis of structural violence.
Remember, as Wikipedia defines it, structural violence is:
Your task is to write a blog post about combating structural violence, which will evolve into part of your major research essay this quarter. Specifically, you are responsible for thinking critically about and explaining the following:
Your homework is to dig deeper into thinking about the core claims of Peace Studies scholars, in particular their analysis of structural violence.
Remember, as Wikipedia defines it, structural violence is:
- "a form of violence where some social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs."
- It is expressed in different forms of oppression, such as institutionalized elitism, ethnocentrism, classism, racism, sexism, adultism, nationalism, heterosexism, and ageism.
- Thus, when, say, sexism leads to women and girls being discriminated against based on their gender and they are excluded from opportunities to attend school, their exclusion helps create the conditions for violence because a large group of people will lack the opportunities, knowledge, and skills needed to develop a more peaceful and prosperous society, and are at the same time more easily manipulated by those who seek power through violent conflict.
Your task is to write a blog post about combating structural violence, which will evolve into part of your major research essay this quarter. Specifically, you are responsible for thinking critically about and explaining the following:
- Explain structural violence by defining the following forms of institutionalized oppression: elitism, ethnocentrism, classism, racism, sexism, adultism, nationalism, heterosexism, ageism, and discrimination based on dis/ability.
- Explain which of these, in your view, is the most pernicious (harmful) and which is the most difficult to eliminate. As we discussed, this is NOT an easy question. So when you do your ranking, you may think in terms of levels (bad/worse/worst, for example), as opposed to a linear hierarchy (first, second, third).
- Explain what actions you think would be necessary in order to eliminate these forms of structural violence at different levels of analysis (individual, domestic, inter-state, global). Discuss at least the ones you identified as being the most pernicious and hard to change.
- Remember, you must also read and comment on the blog posts of at least two other people, as part of your participation mark.