Q1. Clarify The Subtle Difference Between Structural Violence' and Cultural Violence' With Examples

FLIGHT LIEUTENANT PPRN PEIRIS KDU/BSc/2017/11
Q1. Clarify the subtle difference between ‘Structural Violence’ and ‘Cultural Violence’ with
examples
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The violence is any physical, emotional, verbal, institutional, structural or spiritual

behavior, attitude, policy or condition that diminishes, dominates or destroys ourselves and
others. The triangle of violence defined as three types of violence and argues that the
phenomenon has a similar structure to that of an iceberg, in which there is always a small visible
part and a huge hidden part.
1
Direct violence, corresponding to the tip of the iceberg, has as its main characteristic the fact that
most of its effects are visible, mainly the materials, but not all of them hate, psychological
trauma or the emergence of concepts such as ‘enemy’ are equally serious effects, but they are
often not seen as such. Being the most popular and obvious, it is commonly thought that direct is
the worst kind of violence, which is not true for precisely this visibility, which makes it easier to
identify and therefore to combat. It is important to note that this type of violence is the
manifestation of something, not its origin, and is in the beginning where it should be sought
causes and act more effectively. Direct violence does not affect many people as cultural and
structural violence, which are the hidden part of the iceberg.
Cultural violence is a symbolic violence that is expressed in countless media religion, ideology,
language, art, science, media, education, etc and serves to legitimize direct and structural
violence and to inhibit or suppress the response of the victims. It even offers justifications for
humans, unlike other species, to destroy each other and to be rewarded for doing so it is not
strange to accept violence in the name of country or religion. There is a culture of violence in
which schools and other instruments of transmission and reproduction of culture show history as
a succession of wars it is usual to suppress conflicts by unquestioned parental authority or
authority of the male over the female; mass media sell armies use as the main way of solving
international conflicts, etc. So life goes on in an atmosphere of constant violence, manifested
daily in all areas and at all levels.
Structural violence is displayed when, as a result of social stratification processes, there is

damage in the satisfaction of basic human needs survival, welfare, identity, freedom, etc. It is
caused by a set of structures, both physical and organizational, which do not allow the
satisfaction of those needs and is the worst of the three violence because it is the origin of all and
kills and affects more people. It is also a form of indirect violence and sometimes even
unintentional. The actions that cause hunger, for example, are not designed and made directly for
that purpose, but they are result from capitalist economic policy and the unfair distribution of
wealth. This sometimes causes that the reasons of structural violence are not clearly visible and
therefore it is more difficult to deal with it.
2
1.2 The Difference between Structural Violence’ and ‘Cultural Violence’
Structural violence is injustice and exploitation built into a social system that generates wealth
for the few and poverty for the many, stunting everyone’s ability to develop their full humanity.
By privileging some classes, ethnicities, genders, and nationalities over others, it institutionalizes
unequal opportunities for education, resources, and respect. Structural violence forms the very
basis of capitalism, patriarchy, and any dominator system.
Cultural violence is the prevailing attitudes and beliefs that justify and legitimize the structural
violence, making it seem natural. Feelings of superiority/inferiority based on class, race, sex,
religion, and nationality are inculcated in us as children and shape our assumptions about us and
the world. They convince us this is the way things are and they have to be.
3
1.3 Conclusion
The often causes of direct violence are related to structural violence and justified by cultural
violence. Many situations are the result of an abuse of power which concerns an oppressed
group, or a social injustice insufficient resources sharing, great inequality in personal income,
limited access to social services and receive the backing of speeches justifying them.
4
Q2. Differentiate the following ‘Schools of Thought’ from each other:
a. Conflict Management
b. Conflict Resolution
c. Conflict Transformation
2.1 Introduction
Conflict can be most simply defined as disagreement between people. To expand on this a little
more, “Conflict is an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who
perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from others in achieving their
goals. While it naturally occurs due to our interaction with others and as a result of our human
subjectivity, what is important is how we deal with the conflict that arises. There have been a
number of approaches to conflict, three of which are Conflict Management, Conflict Resolution
and Conflict Transformation. Conflicts Management is generally discussed with regard to
intractable conflicts, and has to do with the way people handle, or manage wrongs done to them.
Conflict Management refers to a process that will be undertaken for an indefinite period of time
(and may not result in a resolution), and is primarily concerned with containing and limiting the
conflict. Conflict Resolution, on the other hand, refers to resolving a conflict in such a way that
both parties are satisfied, encouraging them to move from a zero-sum mentality to a win-win
situation. It includes a number of methods for improving a situation of conflict, or removing
conflict altogether. Under the umbrella of Conflict Resolution, we find negotiation, mediation
and diplomacy as Conflict Resolution is often dependent on outside parties coming in to aid in
the resolution process. Finally, Conflict Transformation attempts to change the positions and
perceptions of the disagreeing parties while improving their communication, dealing with the
reasons for the conflict, and ultimately, transforming conflict peacefully.
5
Conflict Management
There are a number of responses one can have in Conflict Management. Some people react to
conflict violently, with war, terrorism, genocide, etc. There are also non-violent methods of
dealing with conflict, which are more common in our daily lives. The five main approaches that
we will discuss here are Competing, Avoiding, Accommodating, Compromising, and
Collaborating. We are all able to use any of the five approaches, and we all employ a variety of
ways to deal with conflict. However, different people tend to use some of the approaches much
more than they use others. Sometimes this is a result of a person’s character, or simply a person’s
habit.
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution encompasses negotiation, mediation, and diplomacy. Diplomacy generally

refers to international diplomacy in which experts in the field try and find a solution to a conflict
that will be acceptable to both parties or countries on matters of economics, war, peace, etc.
Mediation is necessary when two or more parties, states, or individuals have a dispute about a
certain topic, and employ impartial, professional mediators to try and improve communication
and dialogue between the parties to come to an agreement. Negotiation is a form of dialogue
used to resolve a conflict in which advantages and disadvantages are discussed to try and come
to agreement, and persuade the other party to agree with you on the best possible outcome for
your party, or both parties. Conflict Resolution can vary across cultures as the presence of a third
party professional or third party trusted individual can be outside professionals, or inner religious
or community leaders. Conflict Resolution approaches such as negotiation, mediation and
diplomacy are best used when a quick solution is needed and there is no significant relationship
between the conflicting parties.
6
Conflict Transformation
Conflict Transformation seeks to exceed the goals of Conflict Management and Conflict
Resolution, moving beyond the problems and toward a healthy development of relationships
between individuals and communities. To begin, look at the chart provided to see some of the
differences between Conflict Resolution and Conflict Transformation.
2.2 The Difference between Conflict Management, Resolution and transformation
When we think of conflict, most often we think of the distress it causes us. While some people
seem to enjoy conflict, more often people do not enjoy being at odds with one another, especially
when the relationship is one of importance such as a family member, friend, coworker, fellow
church member, or business associate. What is our natural response to the pain of conflict? We
tend to do whatever it takes to stop it, to “resolve” the problem and make it “go away”. Some of
us want to stifle the conflict and just put an end to it. We jump hastily to “resolve” the conflict
by adopting quick “solutions.” We think this will quench it, as if it were a fire. Or, we might try
to pretend that conflict doesn’t exist. We change the subject. We may even stop talking to friends
or visiting those associated with the situation, afraid that things might get unpleasant. But just as
pain can have a positive effect, causing us to move or adjust, so can conflict. Pain is our body’s
way of telling us that something is not right, that something needs to change. Similarly, the
discomfort of conflict should raise the question, “is there something we should be doing
differently?” The difference between conflict resolution and conflict transformation is one of
attitude and goals.
Conflict Resolution merely seeks to “resolve” conflict, to end the discomfort by any means. A
judge bangs a gavel and says “so ruled,” and one side wins or loses. That does not mean the
sources of the conflict have gone away. Nor does it mean that any real communication has
occurred or that either side understands the other any better.
7
In contrast to this, Conflict Transformation does not place the highest priority on “getting rid of”
the expression of disagreement. Instead, Conflict Transformation seeks to transform our
experience of conflict from the inside out. A transformative mediator is a professional mediator
who views conflict as an opportunity. A transformative mediator will attempt to help parties use
the discomfort of their conflict to ask questions designed to explore the root causes of the
discomfort, and then will seek to empower the parties to the conflict to respond to the conflict
with a higher degree of understanding. Viewed this way, conflict is as an opportunity to examine
a situation, to listen to the needs of an “other”, to understand our own needs more clearly, and
then to see if there are avenues for collaboration and cooperation that would enable a better
response than the current one. According to the theory of conflict transformation
Conflict is a natural part of life. When people have conflict, which means there is change,
growth, and engagement in life giving processes of meeting and responding to needs. Yes,
certainly, conflict is usually perceived as uncomfortable or even painful. Yet is also true that
conflict often offers opportunity to develop new ways of seeing things. Conflict can be the force
that helps us move beyond what “is” and to move toward a more positive “what could be”.How
we respond to conflict also involves a moral choice. No person exists as an island. Every social
and business interaction provides opportunity for interests to collide. Thus, every organization or
family experiences conflict. Conflict offers each of us an opportunity to respond in ways that are
negative, or in ways which are positive. For example,
o Do we respond by attacking each other personally, or by tackling issues?
o Do we respond in ways that build organizational competence, or which undermine

it?
o Do we respond in ways that promote healing, or in ways that deepen wounds?
o Do people engage in earnest dialogue to work through issues in ways that deepen
understanding and relationships, or rather do they pretend nothing is wrong,
disengage, or (at the other end of the spectrum), engage in personal attacks,
vendettas, or hostilities?
8
Conflict transformation also requires a leap of faith, of sorts. Each party is given an opportunity,
a moral risk, to relate to the other in an authentic way. Each takes the chance that the other will
reject that opportunity. Everything is not guaranteed to turn out all right. Everything depends on
how we respond to the moral decisions in front of us. Do we choose compassion, or not? Do we
choose to be in more authentic relationship and understanding, or not?
There is a positive side to counterbalance the risk of choosing to respond compassionately. By

exploring and highlighting our differences, conflict offers opportunity to develop more authentic
relationship with the people with whom one is relating. When we choose compassion, we have
no guarantee that our negotiating partner will also choose compassion, but we nevertheless open
the door to possibility. Choosing compassion does involve taking a risk, but what are the
options? Is it a risk one is willing to take?
No matter whether the situation is as personal as a divorce or as as a commercial as a complex
legal dispute, parties in authentic dialogue may discover more about themselves, about their own
needs (or needs of their organization), and also about the other person (or negotiating partner)
and their needs. Good conflict management helps all parties understand their own needs better
and then empowers parties to focus on finding solutions and thinking toward the future.
Additionally, the best solutions to conflict are not those imposed by outsiders, but those designed
by the parties themselves. Seen this way, it becomes apparent that conflict transformation is a
different, and more hopeful, way of looking at and dealing with conflict. The old view was that
conflict itself was seen as the “problem,” perhaps like an annoying fly, and the key goal was to
get rid of the discomfort by shutting up the buzzing, the expression of conflict. The problem with
this viewpoint is not only that stifling the expression of conflict doesn’t make the causes go away
that were creating the symptoms. The parties remain conflicted at the root, causing deep and
lasting damage to their relationships. Even more, this “all or nothing” viewpoint precludes the
possibility of finding some other, better way of looking at and solving a problem.
How much better, then, the paradigm of conflict transformation in seeking to address root causes
rather than symptoms. In a transformative type process, the parties are encouraged to explore
their interests and needs and work together to find solutions that meet as many of those needs as
possible. When viewed this way, the goal of Conflict Transformation is to provide a mechanism
9
by which both parties may be enabled to work together to tackle their common problem: the
problem of identifying the crucial interests of each and then finding a way to meet as many of
those needs and interests as possible. Divorcing spouses separate their lives and develop
parenting plans without engaging in warfare. Parties to a commercial transaction negotiating at a
bargaining table may discover new opportunities for engaging in business together. A church
congregation heals division and becomes unified once again. It is trite to call this a “win – win”
solution. There is not always a way for every interest to be accommodated. But many conflicts
can be resolved and most can be helped, and almost every conflict handled through mediation
results in better understanding.
2.3 Conclusion
In summary, Conflict Transformation aims to provide a process, guided by a conflict resolution

expert, which enables people and organizations to transform conflict into opportunity for
pruning, growth, healing, and renewed vitality. Vitality not only in individual, healed
relationships, but also in organizations and family systems which are restored to health and given
tools to move forward in healthier, more balanced relationships.
10
Bibliography
.
 Miall, Hugh. “Conflict Transformation: A Multi-Dimensional Task.” Berghof Research

Center for Constructive Conflict Management. Berlin, 2004. Accessed April 9, 2011.
http://www.berghof- handbook.net/uploads/download/miall_handbook.pdf.
 Class Notes of Peace and Conflict Resolution, BSc in Management XII Kothalawala
Defense University by Mr Nuwan Herath.
 Resources for Peacemakers, Spiritual Principles of Conflict Transformation on December

3, 2010 by Skinner.
 http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/transformation/?nid=1223
 http://www.netuni.nl/courses/conflict1/week1/1.3_week.html
today’s international and national politics, one

cannot suppress any identity and culture; it
may be Western identity or Muslim identity or
any other identity and culture. Every culture
has an equal right of survival and growth
(Thrall & Cramer, 2009:1-13).
The proposition that democracies should be
less war prone than non-democracies is part
of the liberal perspective. According to liberal
thought, in democracies, where opposition is
legal and allowed and citizens can hold their
leaders accountable for their actions through
competitive elections, the multiple channels
across societies are more likely to constrain
leaders from conflict. Futhermore, based on
the values of political tolerance, democracies
supposedly reinforce preferences for
nonviolent resolution of conflict.
The idea that democratic republics are
peace loving has, in fact, a very long history,
going back at least to the philosopher
Immanuel Kant in 1795. The proposition that
11
democracies are more peaceful has significant

implications for global politics. Democratic
states were among the most important and
powerful nations in the world in the twentieth
century and the number of democratic states
in the world has grown significantly in recent
years (cited in Wallensteen, 2002).
The consensus from scholarly research on
the question of whether democratic states are
less likely than autocratic states to become
involved in international wars is that this is not
the case: democracies are not peaceful than
non-democracies. Juliet Kaarbo and James Lee
Ray in their book, Global Politics (2011), stated
that:
Democratics constraints, for example, did not
prevent British involvement in the Falklands war,
French military interventions in Africa, India’s
conflicts with China and Pakistan, and Israel’s
participation in numerous Middle East conflicts.
The United States, one of the world’s long-
standing democracies, was involved in many
military conflicts during Cold War and after Post
Cold War (Kaarbo & Ray, 2011:151-156).
Conflict resolution and conflict
transformation process can be used for
changing and transforming the nature of
conflict. The urgent need of the time is to
understand the causes and sources of the
conflict and then try to solve those causes
which give birth to conflict. No conflict is
unavoidable rather all conflicts can be changed
and mitigated once the stakeholders of the
conflict will be ready to adopt democratic
principles of conflict resolution and without
going to war just use the deliberation,
tolerance, accommodation, good governance,
and peaceful negotiation as a mechanism to
reach on the consensus.
War and force should not be considered
as the primary instrument for peace-building
process. It must be acknowledged that after
war, we have to be prepared to see the bad
consequences and bad ramifications. This will
take hundreds of years for any nation to be a
stable and prosperous after going though war.
12
The best thing is policy of compromise and

accommodation which will lead towards win-
win solution for both the conflicting parties.
CONCLUSION
Conflict resolution refers to a range of
process aimed at alleviating or eliminating
sources of conflict. Conflict resolution is an
umbrella term for whole range of methods
and approaches for dealing with conflict: from
negotiation to diplomacy, from mediation to
arbitration, from facilitation to adjudication,
from conciliation to conflict prevention,
from conflict management to conflict
transformation, and from restorative justice to
peace keeping.
Conflict resolution, as a mechanism, is
applicable over whole spectrum of societal
relations usually referred to as the three levels
of the personal, local or the community, and
global. Conflict resolution are those activities
undertaken over the short term and medium
term dealing with, and aiming at overcoming,
the deep-rooted causes of conflict, including
the structural, behavioural, or attitudinal
aspects of the conflict. The process focuses
more on the relationships between the
parties than the content of specific outcome.
The aim of conflict resolution is not the
elimination of conflict, which is both impossible
and undesirable, rather the aim of conflict
resolution is to transform actual or potentially
violent situation into peaceful process of social
and political change.
13

that:
14

CONCLUSION
peace keeping.
15

that:
16

CONCLUSION
peace keeping.
17

CONCLUSION
peace keeping.
HILAL AHMAD WANI, ANDI SUWIRTA & JOSEPH PAYEYE,
Conflict Resol
CONCLUSION
18

peace keeping.
Conflict Resol
CONCLUSION
peace keeping.
19

Conflict Resol
CONCLUSION
peace keeping.
Conflict Resol
CONCLUSION
20

peace keeping.
Conflict Resol
CONCLUSION
peace keeping.
21

Conflict Resol
CONCLUSION
peace keeping.
Conflict Resol
22

Q1. Clarify The Subtle Difference Between Structural Violence' and Cultural Violence' With Examples

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Q1. Clarify The Subtle Difference Between Structural Violence' and Cultural Violence' With Examples

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

FLIGHT LIEUTENANT PPRN PEIRIS KDU/BSc/2017/11

The violence is any physical, emotional, verbal, institutional, structural or spiritual

Structural violence is displayed when, as a result of social stratification processes, there is

1.2 The Difference between Structural Violence’ and ‘Cultural Violence’

Q2. Differentiate the following ‘Schools of Thought’ from each other:

Conflict Resolution encompasses negotiation, mediation, and diplomacy. Diplomacy generally

2.2 The Difference between Conflict Management, Resolution and transformation

o Do we respond in ways that build organizational competence, or which undermine

o Do we respond in ways that promote healing, or in ways that deepen wounds?

There is a positive side to counterbalance the risk of choosing to respond compassionately. By

In summary, Conflict Transformation aims to provide a process, guided by a conflict resolution

 Miall, Hugh. “Conflict Transformation: A Multi-Dimensional Task.” Berghof Research

 Resources for Peacemakers, Spiritual Principles of Conflict Transformation on December

today’s international and national politics, one

democracies are more peaceful has signiﬁcant

The best thing is policy of compromise and

across societies are more likely to constrain

and peaceful negotiation as a mechanism to

has an equal right of survival and growth

understand the causes and sources of the

elimination of conﬂict, which is both impossible

from conﬂict management to conﬂict

parties than the content of speciﬁc outcome.

and approaches for dealing with conﬂict: from

the deep-rooted causes of conﬂict, including

You might also like