Anthropological and sociological approaches to violence which attempt to explain the phenomenon on the basis of culture trace the roots of violence to what are essentially social meanings and values. In the words of Maleševič, such accounts posit violence as the “product of culture” (2010, p. 82); in order to understand violence, therefore, we must understand the cultural context in which violent acts do or do not emerge, and thereby grasp the cause and effect relationship between the two. Clearly, the benefits to such an account are numerous. Firstly, such a theory can explain why, for example, some cultural contexts produce more violent acts than others. A classical example of this scenario would be the claim that violence on television or video games yields a more violent citizenry. The social values offered by violent forms of entertainment inform the norms of those affected by these media. Secondly, the cultural context allows us to form a robust theory of violence. Hence, to the extent that one can successfully delineate stable social values, meanings and norms, one is therefore also able to identify the effects of these social concepts, providing a clear etiology of cause and effect. However, these two advantages also possess clear drawbacks. In one sense, it performs a reduction of violence to the cultural, thereby overlooking other potential causes of violence, such war on the political or state level between nation-states. In another sense, if social meanings produce violent acts, which set of social meanings are the ultimate judge as to whether certain acts are violent or not? For example, if a particular religious ceremony in a certain cultural context is considered to be violent, from the perspective of the cultural context where this “violent” act occurs, the ceremony is not violent, but rather a product of the tradition of social norms. In this sense, the cultural account of violence must appeal to a specific set of social meanings and values which allow the act in question to be identified as violent.
These limitations clearly do not discount the notion that culture can play a decisive role in helping understand the phenomenon of violence. Culture, in this sense, may entail a clear set of social roles which lend themselves to violent acts. For example, “instead of viewing domestic violence…as a product of ‘sick’ individuals, sociologists may view it as the product of a culture that tolerates violence in a variety of situations.” (Newman, 2008 p. 216) Hence, in a patriarchal society, where the role of the woman is clearly defined as subservient to that of the man, the violence of husbands against their spouses may be viewed as a direct consequence of how the domestic relation is structured. In so far as there is a non-egalitarian relationship at stake, such acts of domestic violence are tied to the diminished social value which the woman possesses in this particular cultural context. A culture of explicit patriarchy marginalizes the woman, rendering her a type of secondary citizen, and therefore not subject to the same rights as the dominant male caste. Such an inequality is thus entirely consistent with forms of domination and control which may quickly take on explicitly violent forms, such as physical violence, although this social arrangement itself could be considered violent, to the extent that social meanings and value forces certain members of the society into very particular social roles. In this sense, violence becomes explainable as a product or epiphenomenon of the particular social values and meanings practiced by the group. To the extent that there is a clear inequality in social values, this reduction of violence to culture helps understand the etiology of violence, such as domestic violence.
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"The Anthropology and Sociology of Culture and Violence".
Another advantage of this approach is therefore that it refrains from any type of mystification of violence. Violence is not something ethereal and inexplainable, not the product of isolated and autonomous outburst of rage, but is rather reducible to a careful analysis of causes. As Strain summarizes this point, the understanding of violence into culture allows one “to see how complex and multicausal violence actually is, to appreciate how culture seeps into our very beings to affect who we are and what we do.” (2010, p. 23) Namely, such an approach, although it seeks out causes of violence in culture, also recognizes the complexity of violence as a phenomenon, insofar as it may be the product of a diverse number of social meanings and norms. At the same time, it emphasizes the extent to which culture and social meanings and norms are ubiquitous in shaping individual actions. Violence is not relegated to the margins of anthropological and sociological theory, but rather tells us about some of the fundamental norms and values held by a given group. In this sense, the cultural approach to violence does not only tell us about violence, but also about the culture which is being studied, the very norms and values that render a given culture or social group distinguishable as such.
At the same time, a rigorously cultural approach to violence can overlook other forms of violence that may exist. This has the consequence of being unable to explain why certain acts of violence occur. Namely, violence may be an act performed with other ends in mind, other than purely physical violence. Hence, theories of violence which address the concept of violence from a utilitarian perspective see violence as the realization of a goal, that of, for example, realizing particular interests. (Coady, 2008, p. 74) This is a significant difference from the cultural account of violence, which tends to view violence as an effect, a consequence of something else. In utilitarian views, we are able to understand the use of violence as a tool to reach certain goals. This provides insight into, for example, political violence, where war between nation-states may occur because of interests. The U.S. invasion of Iraq, for example, may have been entirely caused by self-interest and securing a geopolitically significant strategic place: violence is used to realize strategic interests. From a cultural perspective, which renders violence an epiphenomenon, the utilization of violence by hegemonic forces, such as state-actors, appears unidentifiable.
Yet another difficulty in this regard is the extent to which the cultural account can accurately define a phenomenon as violent. If violence is the product of given social values and meanings, then it would appear that the violent act does not carry the connotation of violence from within the horizon of this particular culture, in other words, the phenomenon of cultural relativity. (Kornblum, 2011, p. 62) What may be considered to be a violent social arrangement may be viewed as a customary and traditional set of normativities. Accordingly, the identification of the given act as violent emerges from its own unique horizon of social meanings and values. Hence, the sociological and anthropological discussion of violence is informed by various meanings and values, such as a reliance upon the Western scientific method as clear indicator of truth. From another perspective, the Western scientific method could itself be considered to be violent, especially in terms of epistemology, to the extent that it takes itself to be the only legitimate authority on what is true. There are thus various methodological presuppositions that are inherent to the distinction of social meanings and values drawn so as to explain the emergence of violence in a given context, methodological presuppositions which themselves can be said to be shaped by particular social values and norms.
The cultural approach to violence, nevertheless, clearly plays a key role in understanding why violence. This is explicitly clear when tackling issues such as domestic violence, which may be the product of gender roles produced by a very distinct set of social norms. However, the problem occurs when attempting to understand the entirety of violence according to culture: with this approach, some forms of violence, such as state violence, seem to be inexplicable, whereas this approach also presupposes the validity of its own social values with regard to explaining the social values of others.
- Coady, C.A.J., 2008. Morality and Political Violence, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK. - Kornblum, W., 2011. Sociology in a Changing World, Cengage, Belmont, CA.
- Maleševič, S., 2010. The Sociology of War and Violence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
- Newman, D.M., 2008. Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life, Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, CA.
- Strain, C.B., 2010. Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life, Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, TN.
