Closing thoughts and opening research pathways on geographies of slow violence

Abstract

This chapter situates the topic of geographies of slow violence within the current context of the COVID19 pandemic and related injustices that have become more apparent. The pandemic has brought to light various geographies of harm ranging from the international diffusion of the virus, to location-specific public health mandates, to the embodied experiences of virus transfer. The pandemic also exemplifies other aspects of slow violence such as spatial differences and inequities in its impacts and the importance of paying attention to temporalities of the virus and its myriad effects. This chapter recaps the key contributions of the chapters, their findings, and the approaches they demonstrate for studying slow violence. The chapters draw attention to issues of how it is possible to see and describe otherwise invisible forms of harm and how time is an important element whether the focus is on displaced landmines, children’s vulnerability, or the impacts of infrastructure long after it is completed. The chapters also depict how groups of people are disproportionately and unjustly harmed due to racism, legal procedures, or cultural stereotyping. Some of the chapters also feature the use of geospatial technologies such as Lidar mapping and cartographic practices that may serve either to perpetuate slow violence or to resist it, depending on how the technologies are applied and by whom. © Shannon O’Lear 2021.