An Understanding of Social Violence: How Insurgents Use it as a Strategy of Control
ABSTRACT This article discusses debates related to the meaning of violence and proposes the concept of ‘social violence’ to characterise and account for the forms of violence experienced by people in armed conflicts. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, it analyses the social violence wrought by Taliban in 2007-9 and argues that the concept refers to disrespect, humiliation, dishonor and similar actions that damage the identity or reputation of people. Social violence as an analytical concept is a different way of seeing armed conflict, which also offers insights into how civilians are controlled in socially significant ways by insurgents.