NCJ Number
176375
Editor(s)
Z C Eisikovits,
Z C Eisikovits
Date Published
1996
Length
254 pages
Annotation
Thirteen papers critically examine the progress made worldwide in interventions with battered women and their families and assess strategies for the future.
Abstract
A number of essays explore the psychological mechanisms that operate within individuals, allowing or encouraging them to commit violence at the macrolevel. One essay addresses the microlevel process of "doubling," the psychological means by which a person invokes the evil potential of the self as a means of adapting to a particular environment. The case study of "doubling" is the work of the Nazi doctors at Auschwitz. The same essay delves into the psychological process within individuals who contribute to macroforms of violence, such as genocide and war. Other essays address socialization processes, especially gender socialization and socialization around "military" values, which may form a basis for gendered violence at both the microlevels and macrolevels. Two essays by leading feminist scholars call for reconceptualizing the approach to the study of violence so as to assess the gendered nature of microlevel and macrolevel violence. Some essays analyze the role of language and the categories of thought it provides in legitimating violence. Two essays focus on language, conventional solutions, and rationalizing violence. One essay discusses the role of narratives in the legitimation of violence and argues that narratives have changed over time to rationalize increasing violence. Other essays explore the role of culture in mobilizing violence as well as the role of the macrostructure of societies and the global system in violence at the microlevel. A concluding essay by the editors argues that the tendency to view violence as the result of aberrant behavior committed by deviant individuals at the margins of society obscures the central role violence plays in the foundations of the social order and the fundamental dilemmas that humans face. Chapter references and a subject index