Indigenous communities living in Arauca department, a region located on the Eastern Plains of Colombia, are at an imminent risk of physical and cultural extermination -according to the orders 004 and 382 from the Constitutional Court of Colombia- due to a double vulnerability which stems from a historic structural violence dating from the creation of the nation-state and direct violence as a consequence of armed conflict. The physical extermination refers to the high mortality rates that this population suffers either by violence or natural death, while the cultural extermination is a result of both an accelerated process of acculturation and a progressive loss of culture, territory and respect from traditional authorities. This study, by analyzing the local context and the actions that have done harm, addresses the best practices for humanitarian interventions over the role of territory, culture, governance and autonomy as key factors for empowering community members to overcome, face or diminish the consequences of these vulnerabilities.

This thesis aims to investigate the phenomenon of war rape in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in order to understand the dynamics, contextual realities and consequences of its perpetration. Practical and theoretical knowledge is generated which is relevant for health care interventions, humanitarian assistance and peace initiatives, that are cognizant of the actual needs of the affected populations. The study employed ethnographic methodology involving prolonged engagement with the field, participant observation, formal and informal interviews, keeping of field notes and the continuous practice of reflexivity. The four papers in this thesis represent formal interviews with participants from three distinct groups: local leaders (Paper I), ex-child soldier boys (Paper II) and women survivors of sexual violence (Paper III & IV). Qualitative Content Analysis was used for the interview study with local leaders (Paper I). Findings from this study reveal how mass rape and the methods of perpetration create a chaos effectively destroying communities. The leaders draw attention to the fact that an exclusive focus on raped women misses other structural factors that contribute to war and sexual violence, factors such as the global political economy, international apathy, the stance of the church, effects of militarization, inappropriate aid and interpretations of gender roles. Through the theoretical lenses of militarised masculinity and gender based violence, interviews with ex-child soldier boys, seen as both victims of war as well as proxy perpetrators of sexual violence, were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed the systematic and violent construction of children into soldiers, inculcating a rigid set of stereotypical hyper-masculine behaviors promoting dominance by violating the subordinate “other”. These findings argue for a more complex, contextualized view of the perpetrator resulting from the ways society has (re)constructed gender, ethnicity and class. Papers III and IV reflect the interviews and narratives provided by women survivors. Guided by thematic analysis and a matrix of theories: Structural violence, Intersectionality and “new wars”; Paper III bears witness to the women’s expressions of their profound losses and dispossession as they struggle to survive stigmatization in the impoverished margins of the warzone, along with children born of rape. The perpetrator is cited here as well as by the leaders as predominantly Interhamwe. Payne’s Sites of Resilience model used in Paper IV situates stigmatized women survivors suffering in a global context as they navigate survival, demonstrating resilience in the margins through support from their faith in God, scarce health services, indigenous healing and strategic alliances. Findings suggest that collaborations of existing strengthened networks, ie: the church, healthcare and indigenous healers, could extend the reach of sustainable and holistic support services, positively effecting already identified sites of resilience. Findings draw attention to the challenges faced by public health in addressing mass trauma. Women’s raped bodies represent tangible material damage, embedded in a matrix of globalization processes and structural violence involving gender, ethnicity and class. This requires serious reflection.

This thesis focuses on the perceptions and experiences of Rwandan children living in rural child headed households regarding malaria, and how these perceptions and experiences compare to their other health concerns. Despite the attention given to malaria by the international community and the Rwandan government, and the numerous studies that have documented the material and socioeconomic poverty that characterizes the lives of child headed households, Rwandan children’s perspectives regarding their health have rarely been elicited. Through the use of drawing activities and semi-structured interviews with 37 children between the ages of six to eighteen years, living in 14 child headed households, I explore how poverty shapes their understandings, experiences and responses to malaria, and the variation in these perceptions and experiences based on age and gender. Malaria, although a concern for the children, is simply one of many challenges they face in a context characterised by poverty, and structured risk to poor health outcomes. These barriers, along with the other health concerns expressed by the children, receive little attention from informal and organised networks of support, which results in the children bearing a disproportionate burden of social suffering. Insight into structural violence is gained through interviews with NGOs who have or are currently working with child headed households. These interviews illustrate how larger socio-political and economic forces shape the lived reality of the children. Additionally, interviews with community members who offer support to the children illustrate how social ideologies affect local level perceptions and responses to child headed households.

Humanitarian interventions tend to be justified by claims to the existence of an obligation upon ‘us' (the benevolent saviours) to intervene militarily when a state is responsible for large-scale atrocity crimes against its own population. However, this justification is paradoxical, given that there is rarely held to exist a commensurate obligation to address structural violence (even when ‘we' may be partly responsible for, or complicit within, structures that are violent). The paradox arises because structural violence can be harmful – even evil – in its own right, and can also lead to – or exacerbate – direct violence. Hence, intervening militarily, and inevitably causing further harm in the act of intervening, results in a moral shortfall. This shortfall is indicative of a prevailing understanding of harm that is blind to the potential for structures to be violent. In responding to the paradox, I adopt a critical cosmopolitan perspective to argue that because structural violence can be harmful on a great scale, and because it is co-constitutive of direct violence, we ought not to countenance intervening with the use of military force (with what this brings in the form of inevitable intended and unintended harm) to stop direct violence without also considering and addressing violent structures, especially if they are violent structures that we are, ourselves, embedded within. Therefore, it is morally imperative to engage in an ongoing process of illumination and addressing of evil structures to rectify the harms they cause, alongside any efforts to stem direct violence, if any sort of intervention is to be legitimate and just. This requires us to a) expand our understanding of harm and evil at the global level, and b) engage in consistent and sustained deliberative processes that bring to the forefront structural violence and structural underpinnings of direct violence.

The war in Afghanistan has been a core component of the so called ‘War on Terror’ for over twenty years. These decades of hostilities have caused many people to flee and seek refuge in other countries. This study aims to explore and thereby gain a better understanding of the various forms of violence experienced by Afghan refugees living in Germany. The overarching research question to achieve that aim, was: ‘What role did, and do, different forms of violence play in the experiences of the participants?’The study used the framework introduced by Johan Galtung of direct, structural and cultural violence to analyze the data of qualitative in-depth interviews that were conducted. The interviews showed that participants to varying degrees were subjected to a complex combination of all three types of violence in Afghanistan, on their journey to Europe and in Germany. Most direct violence occurred in Afghanistan, on the hands of the Taliban as well as on the journey. Structural violence was omnipresent, and varied from context to context. Whilst in Afghanistan, it was mainly in the realms of poverty, education and water and electricity infrastructure, in Germany it shifted to adequate housing, language courses, prolonged bureaucratic procedures and access to health care. The study found clear signs of cultural violence which normalized other forms of violence.This study indicated that whilst the types of violence are complex and transform continuously; direct, structural and cultural violence are always to a certain degree present in the lives of the Afghan refugees.

Structural Violence and Great Power Competition: The Effects of Sino-U.S. Geopolitical Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific Abstract This paper examines the effects of the ongoing strategic rivalry between China and the United States for influence over the Indo-Pacific in order to demonstrate the negative impacts upon structural violence within the region. Using an amalgamation from various authors, this paper establishes a definition and set of criteria for the presence of structural violence which are then applied to the cases of Vietnam, Myanmar, and Japan. By correlating the mechanisms with which China and the United States garner influence with the specific consequences for the prevalence and severity of structural violence, this paper illustrates that the ongoing geopolitical rivalry poses considerable threats to all Indo-Pacific nations regardless of their development status or social, political, economic, and geographic characteristics. Results indicate that the extent of each country's structural violence was directly or indirectly affected by the presence of foreign involvement, and that different levels of alignment or independence can serve to reduce or exacerbate these effects. Furthermore, evidence indicated that China's methods pose a more immediate threat to induvial countries, but that the United...

<p>Until 1976, women in Alabama could choose to make use of a midwife when they gave birth. In that year, the Alabama state legislature outlawed the practice. This dissertation explores the consequences of that decision as well as the efforts of contemporary non-nurse midwives, also known as Certified Professional Midwives (CPM’s), to re-establish the practice as an option available to birthing women in the state.</p><p> In order to address the consequences of outlawing non-nurse midwives in the state of Alabama a mixed methodology approach is applied. Two years of ethnographic data collection approached with a feminist and cultural anthropology lens, reveal that the lack of medical infrastructure within the state of Alabama prohibits the ability for CPM’s to practice safely. This is owed to historically grounded stigma in racism and classism. As a result, the current CPM community within the state of Alabama, along with their clientele, is predominantly white. This is reflected in the case studies within the dissertation as all the families and care providers, regardless of clinical expertise, are all white. An examination of cesarean rates via quantitative analysis supports the historical and ethnographic findings. Cesarean rates are highest within counties that have a low median household income, and a population that is predominately African American.</p><p> The dissertation features five case studies of women who gave birth attended by a CPM. By relating the experiences of the birthing mothers, a CPM, and certified medical professionals, the dissertation offers evidence of the kind of supplemental medical care and knowledge that can be offered by practitioners of midwifery. At the same time, while contemporary midwives such as the one featured here offer important medical service to their clients, they are not equipped to or knowledgeable about political work necessary to push for the re-legalization of midwifery. This dissertation thus sheds light on the challenges facing midwives who would prefer to work openly and legally in the state.</p><p> Ultimately what is revealed is the value of supplementary healthcare networks within the state. While care and birth services provided by CPM’s is not readily accessible to all, those giving birth in Alabama can find support within the current system through supplementary healthcare networks. These networks include doulas, lactation support groups, babywearing groups, etc. It is a piecemeal system to be sure, but it is a piecemeal system that is working diligently to unlearn biases, and support women and birthing families. However, it is important to understand that the supplemental networks cannot fully address the larger structural crisis that is a lack of infrastructure within the state’s medical system. Ideally, a system that utilizes Obstetricians, Nurse Midwives, and Non-nurse Midwives, all with mutual respect for their own expertise, would exist to provide quality care to women throughout the state.</p>

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Texas in Dallas, Texas offers an array of services and programs to residents in southern Dallas and other areas. However, interest in the state of access to veterinary care has been questioned for southern Dallas residents. In an area that faces certain compounding stressors, such as food deserts and transportation difficulties, a lack of access to veterinary care for pet owners is considered an additional possible stressor. Pet owners in southern Dallas, along with the SPCA of Texas, contemplate how to best provide medical care for local pets. In this body of work, I describe community access to veterinary services in southern Dallas. I provide a resident-centered explanation based on in-depth interviews with locals that discuss the current state of access to veterinary services while simultaneously analyzing the links between access to veterinary care, the area of southern Dallas itself, and ongoing issues with roaming and stray dogs.

The aim of this thesis is to present the situation of the intravenous drug-users (IDUs) living with HIV in Romania, with a focus on Bucharest. The study follows the IDUs experiences from the environment they live in, to the day-to-day examples of structural violence they face. The questions followed regard the lives of the IDUs in Romania, as well as how they are handled by various authorities and institutions’ representatives such as medical staff in hospitals, the national healthcare system, social workers, law enforcement representatives and other public servants. The fieldwork was conducted around Bucharest through the use of observation while volunteering on outreach with an NGO, and interviews in the form of life histories in a hospital, as research methods. The thesis offers a background look at the communist and transition periods that influenced everyday life in today’s Romania. I argue that because of the stigma attached to them for being part of risk groups, the IDUs face many different forms of structural violence. Whether it comes to governmental authorities, law enforcement or medical staff, the IDUs, as well as other vulnerable risk group members, are continuously pushed outside of society through various measures. This creates a continuous state of isolation from which they cannot remove themselves without outsider help.

This thesis studies how structural violence, development and migration are related. It focuses on Tunisian migration and the views and understandings of selected Tunisians in the region of La Marsa. Although migration, development and structural violence are large research fields on their own, the combination of them is not as common. In this case study they are used to analyse the understanding of migration in relation to structural violence and development. This single case study is based on 10 interviews conducted in La Marsa, Tunisia. The focus was based on selected United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: 1, no poverty; 2, zero hunger and 4, quality education. Through analysing interviews and observations this thesis discovers how the selected interviewed Tunisians understand and view Tunisian migration regarding the sustainable development goals. Focus was put on the government not providing for their inhabitants and that structural violence was present. The participants also believed development to be important for the success of the country but that it was not possible if the migration continued in such large frequencies.