Uncovering Violence

It is no surprise that the Bible is filled with stories of violence, having come into being through the crucible of trauma, cultural conflict, and warfare. But the more obvious acts of physical or sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible often overshadow its subtler forms throughout Scripture and belie the variety of perspectives on violence embedded in biblical narratives. This hinders readers' ability to recognize the full spectrum of human engagement with violence, both in texts and in their lived experiences. Uncovering Violence: Reading Biblical Narratives as an Ethical Project seeks to provide a theoretical vocabulary for the various forms that violence can take—including textual violence, interpretive violence, moral injury, and slow violence—and to offer a fresh ethical reading of violence in the biblical text. Focusing on four narratives from the Hebrew Bible, Cottrill uses the approach of narrative ethics to lay out the many ways that stories can make moral claims on readers, not by delivering a discrete "lesson" or takeaway but by making transformative contact with readers and involving them in a more embodied dialogue with the text. Exploring the narratives of Jael’s killing of Sisera, the toxic masculinity of Samson, environmental devastation and failures of legal systems in Ruth, and Abigail’s mediation with King David, Uncovering Violence presents strategies for reading that allow for this close encounter. In doing so, it helps prepare readers to better recognize, interpret, and even respond to violence and its many effects within and beyond the text.

As the economy constricts, it seems living with a chronic sense of fear and anxiety is the new normal for a growing number of urban females. Many females are susceptible to victimization by cumulative strands of violence in school, their communities, families and partnerships. Exposure to violence has been shown to contribute to physical and mental health problems, a propensity for substance abuse, transience and homelessness, and unsurprisingly, poor school attendance and performance. What does a girl do when there is no place to get away from this, and even school is a danger zone? Why have so many educators turned their attention away from the reality of violence against girls? Why is there a tendency to categorize such violence as just another example of the general concept of "bullying?" Critical educators who research the effects of current market logics on the schooling of marginalized youth have yet fully to focus on this issue. This volume puts the reality of violence in the lives of urban school girls back on the map, investigates answers to the above questions, and presents suggestions for change.

“This comprehensive analysis on abuse committed in the home provides insights at both the micro and macro levels... The book combines legal and social science approaches in a way that makes it essential reading for anyone studying or working on violence-related issues.†Kevät Nousiainen, University of Helsinki, Johanna Niemi-Kiesiläinen, University of Umeå and Anu Pylkkänen, University of Helsinki. “This excellent book offers a timely intervention into debates about violence. Whilst most debates still focus on the spectacular rather than mundane forms of violence, Linda McKie uses a synthesis of legal, sociological and feminist research to show how current debates fail to deal with the violence that underpins our lives.†Prof Beverley Skeggs, University of London. An exciting new addition to the series, this book tackles assumptions surrounding the family as a changing institution and supposed haven from the public sphere of life. It considers families and social change in terms of concepts of power, inequality, gender, generations, sexuality and ethnicity. Some commentators suggest the family is threatened by increasing economic and social uncertainties and an enhanced focus upon the individual. This book provides a resume of these debates, as well as a critical review of the theories of family and social change: Charts social and economic changes and their impact on the family Considers the prevalence and nature of abuse within families Explores the relationship between social theory, families and changing issues in familial relationships Develops a theory of social change and families through a critical and pragmatic stance Key reading for undergraduate students of sociology reading courses such as family, gender, health, criminology and social change.

Structural Violence seeks to redraw the conventional map of violence against women. In order to understand violence as a fundamentally heterogeneous phenomenon, it is essential to go beyond interpersonal partner violence and analyze the workings of institutional and structural violence. Self-help books, some shelters, the courts, federal and state legislation, empirical studies, therapeutic models, and even some mainstream feminist polemics presume that all women face the same kind of violence. This assumption masks violence that does not conform to the imagined norm, such as violence against women who are sex workers, lesbians, homeless, and/or undocumented. Joshua M. Price’s exploration of these issues is based on several years of research involving participant-observation in domestic violence courts and extensive interviews with activists, advocates, incarcerated women, and women who have faced various forms of violence. Both conceptually and methodologically, the book challenges narrow notions of violence against women and demonstrates implications for judicial intervention and other forms of public involvement.

The demand for recognition, responsibility, and reparations is regularly invoked in the wake of colonialism, genocide, and mass violence: there can be no victims without recognition, no perpetrators without responsibility, and no justice without reparations. Or so it seems from law’s limited repertoire for assembling the archive after ‘the disaster’. Archival and memorial practices are central to contexts where transitional justice, addressing historical wrongs, or reparations are at stake. The archive serves as a repository or ‘storehouse’ of what needs to be gathered and recognised so that it can be left behind in order to inaugurate the future. The archive manifests law’s authority and its troubled conscience. It is an indispensable part of the liberal legal response to biopolitical violence. This collection challenges established approaches to transitional justice by opening up new dialogues about the problem of assembling law’s archive. The volume presents research drawn from multiple jurisdictions that address the following questions. What resists being archived? What spaces and practices of memory - conscious and unconscious - undo legal and sovereign alibis and confessions? And what narrative forms expose the limits of responsibility, recognition, and reparations? By treating the law as an ‘archive’, this book traces the failure of universalised categories such as 'perpetrator', 'victim', 'responsibility', and 'innocence,' posited by the liberal legal state. It thereby uncovers law’s counter-archive as a challenge to established forms of representing and responding to violence.

`This is a very impressive piece of thorough scholarship. It is an important book that highlights the need to consider gender when developing policies to respond to interpersonal violence. It is written in a clear and accessible style and should be required reading for all criminal justice students.′ - Dr Malcolm Cowburn, Sheffield Hallam University This comprehensive text provides an overview of the relationship between violence, gender, crime and justice. It brings together theory with contemporary cases to enable the reader to understand the key concepts, issues and connections involved. Enlightening and accessible, the book examines the experiences and treatment of men and women as victims and criminals. It explores whether and how offending patterns differ according to gender, and investigates the connections between gender, offending and victimisation. The book covers different types of inter-personal violence including sexual violence, ′domestic′ violence, ′domestic′ murder, male-on-male violence and child abuse. It explores how sexual and ′domestic′ violence have been represented in the media, in the law and in criminal justice processes. Not only does the book present a comprehensive introduction to the field, it also offers reflective questions at the end of each chapter to enable the reader to integrate and interrogate the material covered. Chapter summaries and annotated bibliographies enhance the learning process by helping students to consolidate and further investigate key points. This book is essential for students and academics in criminology, criminal justice, sociology and gender studies.

This book discusses the pervasiveness of violence against women (VAW) in India and traces its evolution as a public health concern. It highlights the fundamental relationship between health and violence and identifies institutional gaps, which hinder comprehensive healthcare and support to VAW survivors. The volume brings together in-depth case studies from various states and civil society organisations on their initiatives to help bring adequate support and health services to women affected by VAW. These include engagement with hospitals to increase awareness and sensitivity among health service providers and community-run health clinics for marginalised women. The book documents the mobilising efforts of feminists, community-based organisations, state institutions, and CSOs in developing comprehensive healthcare responses and bringing violence against women into the public health discourse. It provides insights into the lack of guidelines for responding to sexual violence in medical and nursing education, and the way that the police and the justice system function in India. This book will be of interest to public health professionals, and students and researchers in public health, gender studies, social work, and sociology. It will also be useful for policymakers and for professionals working for thinktanks or CSOs working on developing health system responses to VAW.