2026/04/20 by Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Daniel Santos · 2 voices
Social Sciences · #Decolonial Thought and Epistemologies #Peace and Human Rights Education #Feminism, Gender, and Intersectionality
paper · doi:10.1080/2158379x.2026.2652271
Both ‘violence’ and ‘nonviolence’ are contested terms. Naming ‘violence’ or ‘nonviolence’ is often central to what resistance struggles are about. Such contestations are therefore inevitably inherently political and normative, never just scientific or theoretical. Four areas of contestation are discussed: the variety of phenomena labelled ‘violence’; the importance of public perceptions for ‘nonviolent’ resistance; the extent to which even ‘nonviolent’ struggles seek to cause discomfort that can be received as ‘violent’; and the way ‘nonviolence’ can become entangled in the (re)production of ‘violence’. Seeking to settle definitions is therefore a Sisyphean task, even though these labels are important to resistance.