3 Violence
In the previous section peace is referred to as an absence of all types of violence. Galtung argued that understanding violence and the forms it might take is important to achieve and maintain positive peace.
Returning to the football example, the arguments the school might wish to prevent might be seen as examples of direct violence. This type of violence includes physical and verbal fights. Direct violence might arise from deeper, less immediately visible violence. For example, cultural violence describes the beliefs and assumptions that affect the ways in which particular groups of people are treated. Racism, homophobia and ableism are examples of cultural violence that can become most clearly visible when they result in direct violence, but they also involve ongoing attitudes and behaviours that might take some reflective work to identify.
Case study: Types of violence in school
In a London school which session co-author Lucy Henning worked at some years ago, there were many staffroom discussions about managing the children’s often heated arguments that occurred when playing football, which occasionally resulted in physical violence. And, yes, the school leadership team did ban football for a time. This dealt with the direct violence of the arguments as breaktimes became easier for school staff to manage.
However, as school staff discussed reinstating football other issues emerged. This may sound strange now, but at that time, both staff and children in the school viewed football as something boys played. This is an example of cultural violence as, without realising it, the school community was making a sexist assumption that football was for boys.
Furthermore, the space taken up by the football matches meant that the play for the children who were not footballers was confined to the edges of the playground, leaving non-footballers (the majority of whom were girls) less space to play, prioritising the needs of one group of children over others.
When football was reinstated, there were special times for girls to play as well as times where football was not allowed, to allow greater access for all children to make the most of the playground space.