Radicalization and violent extremism are pressing problems across the world. After initially addressing problems in defining radicalization and extremism, this article sketches a new social-developmental model based on a systematic integration of theories and empirical findings. We propose a three-step model of radicalization starting with ontogenetic social-developmental processes during the most dynamic period for social development, from early childhood to late adolescence. These processes include the interaction of societal, social, and individual risk and protective factors. In adverse cases this interplay encourages the establishment of proximal radicalization processes between early adolescence and middle adulthood. We assume that four interrelated but distinct social-developmental processes are central conditions for radicalization and extremism: identity problems, prejudice, political or religious ideologies, and antisocial attitudes and behavior. These proximal processes are triggered by actual societal, social, or individual conflicts (such as economic crisis, victimization) and marked by continuous intergroup processes. The more intense the proximal processes, the greater the likelihood of extremist attitudes and behavior. The article closes by discussing implications for early prevention and an outlook for further research.
{"title":"A Social-Developmental Model of Radicalization: A Systematic Integration of Existing Theories and Empirical Research","authors":"A. Beelmann","doi":"10.4119/IJCV-3778","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/IJCV-3778","url":null,"abstract":"Radicalization and violent extremism are pressing problems across the world. After initially addressing problems in defining radicalization and extremism, this article sketches a new social-developmental model based on a systematic integration of theories and empirical findings. We propose a three-step model of radicalization starting with ontogenetic social-developmental processes during the most dynamic period for social development, from early childhood to late adolescence. These processes include the interaction of societal, social, and individual risk and protective factors. In adverse cases this interplay encourages the establishment of proximal radicalization processes between early adolescence and middle adulthood. We assume that four interrelated but distinct social-developmental processes are central conditions for radicalization and extremism: identity problems, prejudice, political or religious ideologies, and antisocial attitudes and behavior. These proximal processes are triggered by actual societal, social, or individual conflicts (such as economic crisis, victimization) and marked by continuous intergroup processes. The more intense the proximal processes, the greater the likelihood of extremist attitudes and behavior. The article closes by discussing implications for early prevention and an outlook for further research.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"14 1","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4119/IJCV-3778","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70879549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The contribution investigates the experience of using visual participatory methods of data collection, auto-photography and community mapping, in the context of urban planning, violence and insecurity problems in Mexico. Two case studies examine peripheral communities in the cities of Aguascalientes and Culiacan where different manifestations of violence are present. The contribution explores the potential of participatory visual methods in capturing perceptions of violence and makes the case for their use in planning processes, as more appropriate methods are needed to capture perceptions of violence and insecurity in urban areas. The rationale, methods and results of community mapping and auto-photography are discussed, as well as some potential challenges and theoretical limitations.
{"title":"Using Participatory Visual Methods in the Study of Violence Perceptions and Urban Space in Mexico","authors":"Natalia Garcia Cervantes","doi":"10.4119/IJCV-3163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/IJCV-3163","url":null,"abstract":"The contribution investigates the experience of using visual participatory methods of data collection, auto-photography and community mapping, in the context of urban planning, violence and insecurity problems in Mexico. Two case studies examine peripheral communities in the cities of Aguascalientes and Culiacan where different manifestations of violence are present. The contribution explores the potential of participatory visual methods in capturing perceptions of violence and makes the case for their use in planning processes, as more appropriate methods are needed to capture perceptions of violence and insecurity in urban areas. The rationale, methods and results of community mapping and auto-photography are discussed, as well as some potential challenges and theoretical limitations.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4119/IJCV-3163","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46305909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Is transitional truth-telling more beneficial to reconciliation than remaining silent about past crimes? The aim of this article is to contribute to the debate by exploring the impact of “My Story,” an NGO initiative that uses multiethnic storytelling by victims of the Bosnian war to promote reconciliation. We report field observations and the results obtained from interviews with young Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. Empathy, as a reported outcome of the storytelling, seems to enable deeper reflection and attitude change. Respondents reported reduced prejudice, competitive victimhood and blaming, and increased interest in information about the outgroup, increased interest in peace activism, a change of emotions toward the outgroup and feeling guilt for the misdeeds of their ingroup. We conclude that this storytelling initiative is beneficial and worth spreading internationally. It deconstructs many of the same factors that prevent reconciliation that truth commissions aim to deconstruct, while improving interethnic attitudes and enabling to look toward the future, as forgetting does.
{"title":"Unofficial Storytelling as Middle Ground Between Transitional Truth-Telling and Forgetting: A New Approach to Dealing With the Past in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina","authors":"Hana Oberpfalzerová, J. Ullrich, H. Jeřábek","doi":"10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.638","url":null,"abstract":"Is transitional truth-telling more beneficial to reconciliation than remaining silent about past crimes? The aim of this article is to contribute to the debate by exploring the impact of “My Story,” an NGO initiative that uses multiethnic storytelling by victims of the Bosnian war to promote reconciliation. We report field observations and the results obtained from interviews with young Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. Empathy, as a reported outcome of the storytelling, seems to enable deeper reflection and attitude change. Respondents reported reduced prejudice, competitive victimhood and blaming, and increased interest in information about the outgroup, increased interest in peace activism, a change of emotions toward the outgroup and feeling guilt for the misdeeds of their ingroup. We conclude that this storytelling initiative is beneficial and worth spreading internationally. It deconstructs many of the same factors that prevent reconciliation that truth commissions aim to deconstruct, while improving interethnic attitudes and enabling to look toward the future, as forgetting does.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"13 1","pages":"638"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.638","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46254490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nelson Arteaga-Botello, C. Dávila-Cervantes, A. Pardo-Montaño
This article focuses on the spatial autocorrelation of homicidal violence and the presence of groups that have the capacity to exercise sovereignty. These actors possess necro-power and operate sometimes within, sometimes outside the framework of the law. They are sometimes in opposition to one another, while at other times they operate in a coordinated fashion. Their presence gives form to what we shall call necro-spaces: places where different actors (hitmen, dealers, the police or the military) spread death and destruction, in indefinite confrontations with no foreseeable victor. The methodology of our analysis of the spatial autocorrelation of homicidal violence at the municipal level in the years 2005, 2010 and 2015 enabled us to connect the spatial relationships among the homicides with descriptions of the groups that build regimes of violence in those spaces.
{"title":"Necro-spaces and Violent Homicides in Mexico","authors":"Nelson Arteaga-Botello, C. Dávila-Cervantes, A. Pardo-Montaño","doi":"10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.660","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.660","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the spatial autocorrelation of homicidal violence and the presence of groups that have the capacity to exercise sovereignty. These actors possess necro-power and operate sometimes within, sometimes outside the framework of the law. They are sometimes in opposition to one another, while at other times they operate in a coordinated fashion. Their presence gives form to what we shall call necro-spaces: places where different actors (hitmen, dealers, the police or the military) spread death and destruction, in indefinite confrontations with no foreseeable victor. The methodology of our analysis of the spatial autocorrelation of homicidal violence at the municipal level in the years 2005, 2010 and 2015 enabled us to connect the spatial relationships among the homicides with descriptions of the groups that build regimes of violence in those spaces.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"13 1","pages":"660"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43332315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
U. Harlacher, P. Polatin, Sopheap Taing, P. Phana, P. Sok, Chim Sothera
Based on the hypothesis that pain is a stand-alone problem, not just a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the effect of group psycho-education (“pain school”) for survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime with pain-PTSD comorbidity was tested in Cambodia in 2015. After baseline assessment comprising pain-related measures (Brief Pain Inventory, Disability Rating Index) and measures for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and distress, 113 subjects were randomized to a waitlist control group (CG, n = 58) and a treatment group (TG, n = 55). After treatment TG improved significantly, with clinically relevant effect size. Effect size was, however, substantially lower than in two prior pilot trials, and the improvement was not maintained at six-month follow-up. The main reason for this is hypothesized to be that the intervention had been delivered in too condensed a format. It is concluded that treatment addressing pain can also ameliorate mental health problems, implying that more attention should be paid to pain treatment for subjects suffering from pain/PTSD comorbidity.
{"title":"Education as Treatment for Chronic Pain in Survivors of Trauma in Cambodia: Results of a Randomized Controlled Outcome Trial","authors":"U. Harlacher, P. Polatin, Sopheap Taing, P. Phana, P. Sok, Chim Sothera","doi":"10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.655","url":null,"abstract":"Based on the hypothesis that pain is a stand-alone problem, not just a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the effect of group psycho-education (“pain school”) for survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime with pain-PTSD comorbidity was tested in Cambodia in 2015. After baseline assessment comprising pain-related measures (Brief Pain Inventory, Disability Rating Index) and measures for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and distress, 113 subjects were randomized to a waitlist control group (CG, n = 58) and a treatment group (TG, n = 55). After treatment TG improved significantly, with clinically relevant effect size. Effect size was, however, substantially lower than in two prior pilot trials, and the improvement was not maintained at six-month follow-up. The main reason for this is hypothesized to be that the intervention had been delivered in too condensed a format. It is concluded that treatment addressing pain can also ameliorate mental health problems, implying that more attention should be paid to pain treatment for subjects suffering from pain/PTSD comorbidity.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"13 1","pages":"655"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42987193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Communalism permeates the political, academic, media and everyday discourse in and about India. As a dominant interpretive framework, it expresses a particular politics of interfaith relations that normalises socio-political conflicts and violence intersecting with gender, class and caste relations. These intersections emerge in the experiences, practices and spaces of marginality and violence, revealing both the mechanisms of their normalisation in the context of communal violence and the experience of living within, through and despite it. Everyday life becomes the privileged context for reading communalism in light of a systematic reorganising of the gender-socio-economic governance, and the possibility to interrogate it. Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Hyderabad between 2009 and 2012, the paper reveals a politics of communal violence embedded in everyday social practices. It shows that the gender-socio-economic governance is not parallel to communalism but in fact constitutive of its logic and practices. The paper offers a perspective on how socio-political conflicts become actualised in a social order and how agency within such contexts unfolds as awareness of and action upon the space/possibility of their reconfiguration.
{"title":"Looking Through and Beyond Conflicts: Communal Violence and the Social Order in Hyderabad (India)","authors":"E. Mangiarotti","doi":"10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.658","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.658","url":null,"abstract":"Communalism permeates the political, academic, media and everyday discourse in and about India. As a dominant interpretive framework, it expresses a particular politics of interfaith relations that normalises socio-political conflicts and violence intersecting with gender, class and caste relations. These intersections emerge in the experiences, practices and spaces of marginality and violence, revealing both the mechanisms of their normalisation in the context of communal violence and the experience of living within, through and despite it. Everyday life becomes the privileged context for reading communalism in light of a systematic reorganising of the gender-socio-economic governance, and the possibility to interrogate it. Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Hyderabad between 2009 and 2012, the paper reveals a politics of communal violence embedded in everyday social practices. It shows that the gender-socio-economic governance is not parallel to communalism but in fact constitutive of its logic and practices. The paper offers a perspective on how socio-political conflicts become actualised in a social order and how agency within such contexts unfolds as awareness of and action upon the space/possibility of their reconfiguration.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"13 1","pages":"658"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70886325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study investigates defections from the Al-Shabaab insurgency in Somalia. Thirty-two disengaged Al-Shabaab combatants were interviewed about their motivations, grievances, needs, and challenges in relation to the recruitment, defection, and post-defection phases. This paper focuses on post-defection challenges, where we found the primary concern to be lack of personal security. Without adequate security, disengaged combatants are vulnerable to being hunted and killed by Al-Shabaab. This significant threat discourages further mass and individual defections. We also found that disengaged combatants joined and defected out of religious zeal, to fight for what they believed to be a holy Islamic cause. This same zeal led them to defect, as they came to believe Al-Shabaab was not obeying the true Islamic faith. Indiscriminate killing by Al-Shabaab disenchants its religiously pious members, creating an opportunity to encourage mass and individual defections. However, if disengaged combatants are not protected from retribution, defection will lose its appeal.
{"title":"The Cost of Defection: The Consequences of Quitting Al-Shabaab","authors":"C. Taylor, Tanner Semmelrock, A. Mcdermott","doi":"10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.657","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.657","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates defections from the Al-Shabaab insurgency in Somalia. Thirty-two disengaged Al-Shabaab combatants were interviewed about their motivations, grievances, needs, and challenges in relation to the recruitment, defection, and post-defection phases. This paper focuses on post-defection challenges, where we found the primary concern to be lack of personal security. Without adequate security, disengaged combatants are vulnerable to being hunted and killed by Al-Shabaab. This significant threat discourages further mass and individual defections. We also found that disengaged combatants joined and defected out of religious zeal, to fight for what they believed to be a holy Islamic cause. This same zeal led them to defect, as they came to believe Al-Shabaab was not obeying the true Islamic faith. Indiscriminate killing by Al-Shabaab disenchants its religiously pious members, creating an opportunity to encourage mass and individual defections. However, if disengaged combatants are not protected from retribution, defection will lose its appeal.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"13 1","pages":"657"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41772664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Youth violence remains a concern in Germany, particularly in specific “risky” neighborhoods that tend to be socially segregated and ethnically diverse. In this paper we critically compare the results of twenty-seven qualitative interviews conducted in three risky neighborhoods in the German Ruhr area with the code of the street. While this theoretical framework is frequently cited in explaining youth violence, it was based on research in an ethnically homogenous neighborhood in the United States and thus does not engage with questions of diversity. Our findings show that the core of the code of the street is also applicable in heterogeneous contexts, thus extending the generalizability of the theoretical framework. Manifestations of manhood, reputation, and symbolic power were found to be major elements of street culture, although characterized somewhat differently than in the original work.
{"title":"The impact of segregated diversity on the code of the street: an analysis of violence-related norms in selected post-industrial neighborhoods in Germany","authors":"Sebastian Kurtenbach, A. Rauf","doi":"10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.653","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.653","url":null,"abstract":"Youth violence remains a concern in Germany, particularly in specific “risky” neighborhoods that tend to be socially segregated and ethnically diverse. In this paper we critically compare the results of twenty-seven qualitative interviews conducted in three risky neighborhoods in the German Ruhr area with the code of the street. While this theoretical framework is frequently cited in explaining youth violence, it was based on research in an ethnically homogenous neighborhood in the United States and thus does not engage with questions of diversity. Our findings show that the core of the code of the street is also applicable in heterogeneous contexts, thus extending the generalizability of the theoretical framework. Manifestations of manhood, reputation, and symbolic power were found to be major elements of street culture, although characterized somewhat differently than in the original work.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"13 1","pages":"653"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.653","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43951769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Terrorism has the potential to affect population health through various pathways. Since the literature mostly analyzes tangible economic costs, there is dearth of evidence on health effects of terrorism. In an effort to address that gap, this article explores the relationship between terrorism and health satisfaction of Turkish citizens by combining province-level and individual-level data sets. In order to quantify determinants of health satisfaction, a multi-level modeling framework is employed. Empirical analysis suggests that individuals with higher exposure to terrorism are more likely to report lower health satisfaction in Turkey. Health satisfaction of individuals is significantly and positively correlated with individual-level covariates such as education level, marital status, employment status, household income, housing floor area per person, interest in health issues and becoming a parent within the past year. Age, being female and utilization of health services display negative associations with health satisfaction of individuals. Finally, province level GDP per capita and schooling ratio exhibit significantly positive associations with individual health satisfaction in Turkey.
{"title":"Exploring Health Effects of Terrorism: A Multi-Level Analysis for Turkey","authors":"Tekin Kose, Cansu Oymak","doi":"10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.654","url":null,"abstract":"Terrorism has the potential to affect population health through various pathways. Since the literature mostly analyzes tangible economic costs, there is dearth of evidence on health effects of terrorism. In an effort to address that gap, this article explores the relationship between terrorism and health satisfaction of Turkish citizens by combining province-level and individual-level data sets. In order to quantify determinants of health satisfaction, a multi-level modeling framework is employed. Empirical analysis suggests that individuals with higher exposure to terrorism are more likely to report lower health satisfaction in Turkey. Health satisfaction of individuals is significantly and positively correlated with individual-level covariates such as education level, marital status, employment status, household income, housing floor area per person, interest in health issues and becoming a parent within the past year. Age, being female and utilization of health services display negative associations with health satisfaction of individuals. Finally, province level GDP per capita and schooling ratio exhibit significantly positive associations with individual health satisfaction in Turkey.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"13 1","pages":"654"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.654","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47779870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores ethnographically the manufacturing of religious polarisation and violence in West Bengal, India. Since 2014, India has experienced a rise in religion-based identity conflict. Although West Bengal experienced riots during the partition of India, it remained unaffected during the subsequent three decades of Left rule. More recently, however, secular democratic forces have been marginalised and riot-like conflicts have emerged. We argue that identity consolidation in West Bengal is part of an increasing trend of religious polarisation in the country. To bridge the gap between scholarly discussions on the concepts of secularism and communalisation, the paper presents micro-narratives illuminating the background of religious polarisation and violence. We provide ethnographic details of the mechanisms by which religious identities are consolidated. With a case-based approach, this article unearths the mechanisms of identity-based polarisation, and its politicisation in a region which has not experienced this level of violence for several decades.
{"title":"Manufacturing Polarisation in Contemporary India: The Case of Identity Politics in Post-Left Bengal","authors":"Suman Nath, S. Chowdhury","doi":"10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.652","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores ethnographically the manufacturing of religious polarisation and violence in West Bengal, India. Since 2014, India has experienced a rise in religion-based identity conflict. Although West Bengal experienced riots during the partition of India, it remained unaffected during the subsequent three decades of Left rule. More recently, however, secular democratic forces have been marginalised and riot-like conflicts have emerged. We argue that identity consolidation in West Bengal is part of an increasing trend of religious polarisation in the country. To bridge the gap between scholarly discussions on the concepts of secularism and communalisation, the paper presents micro-narratives illuminating the background of religious polarisation and violence. We provide ethnographic details of the mechanisms by which religious identities are consolidated. With a case-based approach, this article unearths the mechanisms of identity-based polarisation, and its politicisation in a region which has not experienced this level of violence for several decades.","PeriodicalId":45781,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Conflict and Violence","volume":"13 1","pages":"652"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4119/UNIBI/IJCV.652","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42222970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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