TOPIC:  STRUCTURING NONVIOLENCE 

We know how to structure violence, with its multiple forms. When we add ecoviolence to Johan Galtung’s classic direct-structural-cultural violence triangle, we get a violence diamond, or more accurately, a web of violence (Turpin and Kurtz, 1996). To what we often think of as violence (direct), we must add the institutions structured to harm individuals, groups, cultures, and the ecosphere itself. 

We could, however, build sustainable development with direct, structural, cultural, and ecological nonviolence. We already have institutions that structure nonviolence – e.g., families, faith and cultural institutions, civic organizations like the Rotary, and friendship networks. Jennifer Turpin and I wrote about the Web of Violence in 1996, which we collectively weave from micro to macro levels of life, but we also need to attend to and weave a Web of Nonviolence, following a three-step Gandhian process: research, analyze, and mobilize. I’d like to share those thoughts and ask for your insights.

BIO:  Lester Kurtz is Professor of Public Sociology at George Mason University and holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago and a Master’s in religion from Yale. He is the editor-in-chief of a 4-volume Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict and co-editor of a 2-volume Women, War and Violence: Typography, Resistance and Hope; The Warrior and the Pacifist: Competing Themes in Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Movements; Peace Studies for Sustainable Development in Africa, Nonviolent Civil Resistance; Nonviolent Social Movements and other books and articles, including the award-winning The Politics of Heresy. He has chaired the Peace and Justice Studies Association, the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association, and the Commission on Ethnic Minority Concerns and Advocacy of the Virginia United Methodist Church. He has taught as a visiting professor at the European Peace University, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Delhi University, and Tunghai University, and has lectured in Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America.

Sign Up Now