Understanding Structural Violence and Suffering in Development Anthropology

This critical analysis by Paul Farmer delves into the concept of structural violence and its impact on human suffering, focusing on examples from Haiti. Farmer highlights the unequal social structures contributing to suffering and questions the best approach to help those in need, exploring connections to biopolitics and refugee status in different contexts.

• Structural violence
• Suffering
• Development anthropology
• Paul Farmer
• Social inequality

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1. A critical analysis of ON SUFFERING AND STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE: A VIEW FROM BELOW Development anthropology University of Trieste MA in diplomacy and international cooperation By Paul Farmer

2. Structural violence as a synonym for unequal social structures; attempt to distinguish their nature in order to analyse their role in the distribution of human suffering. ARGUMENT

3. The agony of Acphie and Chouchou [the protagonists of the two examples Farmer made in the paper] was, in a sense, "modal" suffering. In Haiti, AIDS and political violence are two leading causes of death among young adults. These afflictions were not the result of accident or of force majeure; they were the consequence, direct or indirect, of human agency. (p. 271) QUOTES The capacity to suffer is, clearly, part of being human. But not all suffering is equal, in spite of pernicious and often self-serving identity politics that suggest otherwise. (p. 279)

4. By what social mechanisms do social forces ranging from poverty to racism become embodied as individual experience? (p. 261) Is every culture a law unto itself and a law unto nothing other than itself? (p. 277) CRITICAL QUESTIONS My personal critical question: In the end, what is the best way or approach to help those who suffer?

5. PAUL FARMER AND MICHEL FOUCAULT Structural violence in Haiti & Biopolitcs applied on the borderzone of Calais Contact points CONNECTIONS Individuals belonging to the lowest rungs of the social ladder Application of Farmer s axes refugees status to the case of Calais

6. How does the use of the notion of structural violence allow for a more relevant analysis of the various forms of violence it describes? IMPLICATIONS

7. LIST OF REFERENCES Academy of Achievement, a Paul Farmer s interview in 2009, Paul Farmer, M.D. | Academy of Achievement Chignola, S., Michel Foucault e la politica dei governati. Governamentalit , forme di vita, soggettivazione, Rivoluzioni Molecolari Anno I, Numero 2 (2017) 20-77-1-PB.pdf Farmer, P. (1996). On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below. Daedalus, 125(1), 261-283. Retrieved March 27, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027362 Farmer, P. (2004). An Anthropology of Structural Violence. Current Anthropology, 45(3), 305-325. doi:10.1086/382250 Farmer, P., Structural interventions to address structural violence, Guest lecture 13, University of Oslo, December 2016 Paul Farmer: Structural interventions to address structural violence YouTube Quaranta, I., Antropologia medica. I testi fondamentali. Raffaello Cortina Editore, 2006 (pp. IX-XXX) Structural violence in Haiti Wikipedia