We are used to thinking of ‘violence’ as violence and, indeed, as something more real than almost anything else. As something that defies categorization; that just is. In this workshop we propose to suspend our belief that there is such a thing called violence, and instead focus on how we and others use ‘violence’ as a category of action, whether in designing government policy, passing judgement in court, producing films, writing newspaper articles or political theory, diagnosing patients, or simply chatting about other people. Our intention is not to define violence or even to offer alternative definitions, but instead to think how violence gets defined and with what consequences.

How, why and with what consequences do people deploy the category of violence? How do they distinguish between ‘violent’ and ‘non-violent’, and to what effect? For example, how is the line drawn between ‘violent’ and ‘peaceful’ protest and between ‘tough’ and ‘brutal’ policing of protests, and what rides on those distinctions? More broadly, what are the effects of scholars marking off as ‘violent’ whole areas of human life, as in the pathology of ‘violent’ tendencies, or of labeling whole regions of world as ‘violent’? Or of art taking ‘violence´ self-consciously as its object, as in Clockwork Orange? Law generally avoids the term ‘violence’ in favour of more ‘neutral’ terms such as coercion – but with what results? With what consequences does violence get linked to categories such as religion and sex, often considered ‘sources of violence’? And what are the effects of disputing the boundaries of violence, for example when we label as ‘symbolic violence’ actions that are not normally described as ‘violent’?

We are not necessarily looking for polished research papers but for provocative responses to our questions that will help to spark energetic discussion – at least half the workshop time will be set aside for discussion – among a very diverse group of participants from across the humanities and social sciences.

The following have already agreed to participate:
- Vivenne Jabri, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Centre for International Relations at King’s College London, whose current research and writing focus on war/violence and conceptions of cosmopolitan political community in a globalised world
- Fiona Sampson, poet (latest volume entitled Rough Music) and writer on the philosophy of language and the creative process
- Andrea Mura, political philosopher at the University of Loughborough, whose work has centred on the theoretical interplay between continental and Islamic philosophy, focusing on contemporary debates on universalism, territoriality, modernity, and hyper-modernity, and on the work of Jacques Lacan