Guest editors: Brett Bowman, Kevin Whitehead and Geoffrey Raymond
Psychology of Violence invites manuscripts for a special issue on the role of situational factors and mechanisms for understanding enactments of violence, to be compiled by guest editors Brett Bowman, Kevin Whitehead and Geoffrey Raymond.
Schinkel (2004, p. 6) provocatively argues that “violence itself has been shied away from in the vast majority of social scientific inquiry concerning violence. What has been researched are certain patterns through which violence inscribes itself, and what has been understood are meanings given to particular occurrences, perhaps even particular kinds, of violence. … We have hardly begun to understand violence itself”. What Schinkel is pointing to is that, while there has been a clear attempt to understand risks for violence and protective factors against it, little attention has been accorded to the violent situation itself.
Several authors have made strong theoretical cases for the need to situate the violent event as the unit of analysis in advancing violence studies (Bowman et al., 2015; Collins, 2009). However, empirical research on the role of situational factors in enactments of violence has remained relatively limited. This special issue thus represents an attempt to address the relative neglect of situation-focused empirical analyses of violent encounters. We welcome contributions that employ any methodological approach directed at empirically examining situational factors and mechanisms involved in violence broadly conceptualized, encompassing but not limited to interpersonal (e.g., intimate partner violence, gender-based violence, acquaintance/stranger violence), collective (e.g., genocide, torture, violent political protests), and state (e.g., war, police brutality) violence.
Topics and approaches may include but are not limited to:
- Phenomenological analyses of perpetration and victimhood focusing on accounts of violent encounters.
- “Micro-interactional” (e.g., ethnomethodological or conversation analytic) studies of the moment-by-moment unfolding of violent exchanges.
- Ethnographic studies of settings characterized by violent events.
- Other qualitative studies of intersecting psychological and social dimensions in violent enactments.
- Experimental or quasi-experimental studies of situational determinants and variability in violent outcomes.
- Social epidemiological analyses focusing on proximal and/or meso-level variables, including survey studies.
Manuscripts can be submitted through the journal’s submission portal. Please note in your cover letter that you are submitting for the special issue. The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 31 March 2017. Inquiries regarding topic or scope for the special issue or for other manuscripts can be sent to Brett Bowman (Brett.Bowman@wits.ac.za), Kevin Whitehead (Kevin.Whitehead@wits.ac.za) or Geoffrey Raymond (graymond@soc.ucsb.edu).
References
Bowman, B., Stevens, G., Eagle, G., Langa, M., Kramer, S., Kiguwa, P., & Nduna, M. (2015). The second wave of violence scholarship: South African synergies with a global research agenda. Social Science & Medicine, 146, 243-248.
Collins, R. (2009). The micro-sociology of violence. The British Journal of Sociology, 60(3), 566-576.
Schinkel, W. (2004). The will to violence. Theoretical Criminology, 8(1), 5-31.