The Politics of Violence: Gender, Conflict and Community in El Salvador

The persistence of high levels of violence alongside ‘democratising’ processes in Latin America has emerged as an important source of academic enquiry and policy debate in recent years. As an interdisciplinary approach to the study of violence, The Politics of Violence unites a critical analysis of theories of violence with original ethnographic research on its use, and broader responses to its different manifestations. In addition, it offers an important theoretical contribution to debates on violence, through the development of in-depth accounts of the violence of everyday life from a feminist perspective. Hume examines the vocabularies of violence as articulated by those who suffer it on an everyday basis, locating these in a critical analysis of the relations of domination that have shaped Salvadoran history.

The Politics of Violence is crucial to the research community in Latin American studies, and to research communities in the disciplines of politics, sociology, geography, international development, cultural studies and history. It will also be of real relevance to members of international organisations, such as UN agencies, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and NGOs who are primarily concerned with its impact on development.