Aspects of Violence: A Critical Theory

This book provides a novel approach to the social scientific study of violence. It deals extensively with the problem of the definition of violence, drawing on sources ranging from Heidegger to Bourdieu. Arguing that a definition of violence is of a highly political character, it makes the case that a critical social scientific study cannot but make use of an ‘extended’ definition of violence if it is to avoid subscribing to commonsensical or state-propagated definitions of violence. The book pays specific attention to ‘autotelic violence’ (violence for the sake of itself), as well as to terrorism. In accordance with what Pierre Bourdieu called the ‘law of the conservation of violence’, it sketches the contour of the trias violentiae, thus always bringing structural violence and state violence to bear on private violence.