Psychosocial Violence and its Metonymies: Affects, Bodies, Moralities and Subjects

Violence remains one of the most intractable and embedded features of our time. This paper highlights some of the fault lines and fractures in our responses to the question of violence. Focusing on a psychosocial approach to understanding violence, and utilizing a decolonial lens, the paper suggests shifting our gaze towards understanding and theorizing the “how” of violence as opposed to the “why” of violence. It argues against interventionism, for the re-engagement with issues of morality, for an examination of embodied enactments, and for the exploration of affective practices.
A clinical psychologist by training, Professor Garth Stevens is Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Humanities, as well as Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS), Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include foci on race, racism and related social asymmetries; racism and knowledge production; ideology, power and discourse; violence and its prevention; historical/collective trauma and memory; and masculinity, gender and violence.
This event is sponsored by: The Faculty of Education; Founders College; African Studies; and, The Department of Anthropology