Abstract

ZAVALETA BETANCOURT, José Alfredo. Elements for the Construction of the Concept “Field of Violence”. Sociológica (Méx.) [online]. 2018, vol.33, n.93, pp.151-179. ISSN 2007-8358.

This article describes the usefulness of the concept of “field” for doing historical and empirical analyses of violence. To this effect, it employs classical and contemporary sociological concepts, proposes focusing observation on apparatuses that produce the subjectivity of perpetrators and victims, and examines the idea of the reconstruction of the narratives of pain and suffering. In particular, the author relates the sociological concept of “field” with works in political anthropology that resort to the notion of state margins to note the episodic, dynamic, and cumulative character of violence as it is produced in local spaces. From this perspective, the objective of the article is to contribute certain reflections to the construction of the “field of violence” notion. The analysis offered here maintains that the concept proposed is very useful in empirical research because it reminds us that not everything in society is violent and, at the same time, that violence cannot be reduced to homicides.

Keywords : violence; field; crime; state margins; subjectivity.

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