Editing Structural violence (section)

==International scope==
{{see also|Structural violence in Haiti}}
[[Petra Kelly]] wrote in her first book, ''Fighting for Hope'' (1984):

{{blockquote|A third of the 2 Billion people in the [[developing countries]] are [[starving]] or suffering from [[malnutrition]]. Twenty-five percent of their children die before their fifth birthday […] Less than 10 per cent of the 15 million children who died this year had been [[vaccinated]] against the six most common and dangerous [[Childhood disease|children's diseases]]. Vaccination costs £3 per child. But not doing so costs us five million lives a year. These are classic examples of ''structural violence''.}}

The violence in structural violence is attributed to the specific organizations of society that injure or harm individuals or masses of individuals. In explaining his point of view on how structural violence affects the health of [[Subaltern (postcolonialism)|subaltern]] or [[marginalized]] people, [[medical anthropologist]] [[Paul Farmer]] writes:<ref name="Farmer & Connors2">Farmer, Paul, and Margaret Connors. 1996. ''Women, Poverty & AIDS: Sex, Drugs and Structural Violence'' (reprint ed.), Series in Health and Social Justice. Common Courage Press. {{ISBN|978-1-56751-074-4}}</ref><ref name="PLoS" />

{{blockquote|Their sickness is a result of structural violence: neither culture nor pure individual will is at fault; rather, historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces conspire to constrain individual agency. Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress.}}

This perspective has been continually discussed by Farmer, as well as by [[Philippe Bourgois]] and [[Nancy Scheper-Hughes]]. Farmer ultimately claims that "structural interventions" are one possible solution to such violence; structural violence is the result of policy and [[social structure]]s, and change can only be a product of altering the processes that encourage structural violence in the first place.<ref name="PLoS" />

Theorists argue that structural violence is embedded in the current [[World-system|world system]]; this form of violence, which is centered on apparently inequitable social arrangements, is not inevitable. Ending the global problem of structural violence will require actions that may seem unfeasible in the short term. To some,{{who|date=June 2015}} this indicates that it may be easier to devote resources to minimizing the harmful impacts of structural violence. Others, such as futurist Wendell Bell, see a need for long-term vision to guide projects for social justice. Many structural violences, such as [[racism]] and [[sexism]], have become such a common occurrence in society that they appear almost invisible. Despite this fact, sexism and racism have been the focus of intense cultural and political resistance for many decades. Significant reform has been accomplished, though the project remains incomplete.{{citation needed|date=June 2015}}

Farmer notes that there are three reasons why structural violence is hard to see:

# Suffering is exoticized&mdash;that is, when something/someone is distant or far away, individuals tend to not be affected by it. When suffering lacks proximity, it's easy to exoticise.
# The weight of suffering is also impossible to comprehend. There is simply no way that many individuals are able to comprehend what suffering is like.
# Lastly, the dynamics and distribution of suffering are still poorly understood.<ref name="Farmer & Connors2"/>

[[Anthropologist]] [[Seth M. Holmes|Seth Holmes]] studied [[suffering]] through the lens of structural violence in his 2013 [[ethnography]] ''Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States''. He analyzed the [[Naturalisation (biology)|naturalization]] of physical and [[Mental suffering|mental]] suffering, violence continuum, and [[structural vulnerability]] experienced by [[Mexican immigrants in the United States|Mexican migrants in the U.S.]] in their everyday lives.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Holmes|first=Seth|title=Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States|publisher=Berkeley, University of California Press, 2013|date=April 15, 2013|pages=80, 90, 183}}</ref> Holmes used examples like governmental influences of structural violence—such as how American [[Corn production in the United States|subsidization of corn]] industries force Mexican farmers out of business, thereby forcing them to make the very dangerous trip across the border, where the [[United States Border Patrol|U.S. Border Patrol]] hinder these migrants' chances of finding work in America, and the impact this all has on the migrants’ bodies.<ref name=":3" />