Defining Three Types of Violence to Advance Nonviolence

• Violence extends beyond physical harm to include coercive control and structural inequality.
• Drawing on the work of Argentine thinker Silo, violence can be categorized into three distinct but overlapping forms: bodily, objectifying, and structural.
• Distinguishing between these forms is essential for clarifying the objectives of active nonviolence and identifying necessary areas for social transformation.

The Three Forms of Violence

• Bodily violence: Acts performed upon a person’s body without free, valid, and continuing consent, including restraint, invasion, or injury.
• Objectifying violence: The subordination or displacement of an individual's intentionality, where they are treated as an instrument or 'prosthesis' for another person’s project.
• Structural violence: Institutional, social, or economic arrangements that create avoidable denials of the effective enjoyment of fundamental human rights.

Implications for Nonviolence

• Legality and perceived ethical justification do not change the classification of an act as violent; they answer different questions.
• Each form of violence requires specific responses: bodily violence necessitates protection of integrity, objectifying violence requires transforming relational dynamics, and structural violence demands systemic reform.
• True nonviolence recognizes every human being as a center of intention with an open future, rather than an object to be used for another's ends.