Structural Violence

Definition

•What do you think it means?•How is it different from direct violence?

Definition• Systematic ways in which social structures

harm or otherwise disadvantage individuals

• “Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress.”—Dr. Paul Farmer

• Institutionalized elitism, ethnocentrism, classism,  racism, sexism, adultism, nationalism, heterosexism and ageism

Effects

•“constraint of agency”• What are some structural barriers or

structural inequalities that may extend to structural harm?

Poverty and Inequality

Some stats•291,000 deaths in US attributable to

poverty/income inequality•US infant mortality rate is double for African

Americans than for Caucasians•46.2 million people live in poverty in US

(about 15%--22% of children)•About 700 million world wide are starving•1 in 4 children die before their 5th birthday•2.5 billion don’t have access to sanitation

facilities

Relating the concept

•Do you find evidence of structural violence in the HeLa book?

•Specific examples?

•Assigning culpability…

•How does structural violence relate to social entrepreneurship?