The Politics of Violence

The Politics of Violence develops an interdisciplinary feminist perspective grounded in original ethnographic research on everyday forms of violence in El Salvador. Hume challenges dominant theories of violence through foregrounding subaltern vocabularies that have been historically ignored in debates on violence.

• Unites a critical analysis of theories of violence with original ethnographic research on its use and broader responses to its different manifestations
• Makes an important theoretical contribution to debates on violence, through developing in-depth accounts of the violence of everyday life from a feminist perspective
• Examines the vocabularies of violence of those who live with it on an everyday basis, locating these vocabularies in a critical analysis of the relations of domination that have shaped Salvadoran history
  

Preface.

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

1. Questioning Violence: Meanings, Myths and Realities.

2. (Mis)recognising Violence in Latin America.

3. ‘Terror as Usual’: Uniting Past and Present Accounts of Violence.

4. Gendered Hierarchies of Violence.

5. ‘Kill Them, Attack Them at the Roots and Kill Them All’: Examining Responses to Violence.

Conclusions.

References.

Index.

Mo Hume is a lecturer in Politics at the University of Glasgow and co-convenor of the International Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies. She has carried out extensive ethnographic research in El Salvador, where she worked for several years with the women’s movement. The persistence of high levels of violence alongside ‘democratising’ processes in Latin America has emerged as an important source of academic enquiry and policy debate in recent years. As an interdisciplinary approach to the study of violence, The Politics of Violence unites a critical analysis of theories of violence with original ethnographic research on its use, and broader responses to its different manifestations. In addition, it offers an important theoretical contribution to debates on violence, through the development of in-depth accounts of the violence of everyday life from a feminist perspective. Hume examines the vocabularies of violence as articulated by those who suffer it on an everyday basis, locating these in a critical analysis of the relations of domination that have shaped Salvadoran history.

The Politics of Violence is crucial to the research community in Latin American studies, and to research communities in the disciplines of politics, sociology, geography, international development, cultural studies and history. It will also be of real relevance to members of international organisations, such as UN agencies, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and NGOs who are primarily concerned with its impact on development.

'A fascinating and thoughtful book about the meanings of violence in El Salvador. Hume details a new gendered ethnography, illuminating the intersections between the violence of conflict and the violence of 'peace times'.
—Cathy McIwaine, Queen Mary, University of London

'This book is a bold and long awaited lens on violence from a feminist perspective. On the one hand it is a rich ethnography of violence in El Salvador, and on the other it re-conceptualises violence in order to bring out the differential gender effects, experiences and agency. This is a very valuable contribution to bringing violence into the centre of debates on politics, development and peacebuilding.'
—Jenny Pearce, University of Bradford