Summer course “The sex of violences”

Centre for Social Studies and Casa da Esquina

9-12 September 2009

The plurality of violence, or more precisely armed violence, appears in spiral-form and as continuum. Frequently, the violence of war involves a hyper-concentration of everyday and socially accepted violent acts. It is fundamental to question the filters with which we analyse the distinction between war and peace, defying micro-macro and public-private dichotomies and highlighting the dissemination of violence at various levels.
The analysis of the typology and characteristics of these forms of violence reveals the degree to which definitions of peace, war and post-war can be incomplete or artificial. The expressions of these forms of violence alternate between situations as distinct as armed conflicts, violent criminality or domestic violence.

This course aims to:

a) Analyse the relations between masculinities, femininities and forms of violence (expressions, actors, strategies and response/prevention policies), which affect countries and societies living in contexts of war and/or peace;
b) Identify the implications of the segmented hyper-visibility of violence, namely the silencing of other violent expressions and its actors, as well as the absence or inadequacy of response and prevention policies to these forms of violence.
c) Promote the interrelationship between research and action and among different publics/agents.

For more information, see http://www.ces.uc.pt/cessummerschool/pages/en/the-sex-of-violences.php