How can phenomenology help address the problem of social violence? Can phenomenology provide an adequate description of its essence? Is the phenomenological method able to deepen and transform its comprehension? The paper is an attempt to answer these questions through an analysis of three different testimonies of social violence entailing elements of phenomenological description. Starting with a minimal definition of the phenomenological description, understood as search for a meaning for a lived experience and substitution with those who suffer, the article discusses several issues raised by a phenomenological description of social violence, such as the danger of justifying it when searching for its meaning, of blaming the victims who suffered from it or of prolonging its traumatizing effects. The paper ends by questioning the ways in which the phenomenological method can offer support for resilience and inspire resistance to social violence.
Call for Papers: Studia Phænomenologica Vol. 21 / 2021 – From Witnessing to Testimony
Over the last decades, there has been a growing interest in the role of testimony and related phenomena and, in particular, an increasing attention to the phenomenology of the experience of testimony, its distinctive structure and significance. This interest is...