Slow violence
Slow violence is violence which occurs gradually and is not necessarily visible. Slow violence is incremental and is dynamic across time, in contrast with a conception of general violence as an event or action that is immediate, explosive and spectacular. Outcomes of slow violence include environmental degradation, long-term pollution and climate change. Slow violence is also closely linked to many instances of environmental racism.
The origins of the concept of slow violence can be traced back to the 1960s with the introduction of the idea of structural violence. In 1969, Johan Galtung conceived of structural violence. Some views include that structural violence and slow violence are closely linked, as structural inequality can morph into forms of slow violence. However, slow violence is thought to be different from structural violence, as slow violence occurs over a period of many years or generations.
The term slow violence itself was coined by Rob Nixon in his 2011 book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Nixon defines slow violence as "a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all". Rob Nixon states that people lacking resources or people who are living in poverty are the main casualties of slow violence, as it is "built on the bedrock of social inequality". Use of the term has since transitioned to involve applications outside of environmental concerns.
Interpretations of slow violence are varied. Thom Davies challenges the idea that slow violence is 'out of sight', but that instead it could be out of sight to a particular person or people. He contrasts an immobile and fixed nature of structural violence with his and Nixon's ideas of a geographically and temporally dynamic movement of slow violence over time. Davies also states that a lack of understandings of process, interactions, and effects can result in slow violence. Ahman produces work that contributes to the shared idea that both slow violence and its responses are characterized by manipulations of time. Shannon O'Lear provides another definition stating that slow violence is indirect and latent, and that "it can result from epistemic and political dominance of particular narratives or understandings."
Digital slow violence is characterized by the gradual and often unnoticed adverse effects in the digital realm, such as extended online harassment and unauthorized sharing of personal information, which collectively can affect individuals' well-being over extended periods.
Types of slow violence
The definition and use of slow violence has evolved throughout time to include the following examples:Slow violence in energy
Petrochemical infrastructure
Communities surrounded by petrochemical infrastructure endure toxic pollution, which is defined by Thom Davies as a type of violence. However, this type of slow violence is not entirely invisible to the people they impact. People subject to slow violence gradually witness the daily impacts of that violence. Davies records instances of slow violence caused by petrochemical infrastructure in Freetown, Louisiana, where 136 petrochemical plants reside. This instance of slow violence is a form of environmental racism, as it is occurring on land with a population of 95% African Americans.Fairfield Renewable Energy Project
In 2009, a trash incinerator called the Fairfield Renewable Energy Project was set to be constructed in Maryland's Curtis Bay neighborhood. The energy the incinerator generated from burning waste and garbage would power other neighborhoods located in Baltimore and was presented as a renewable energy source. At the time, state officials were considering reclassifying incineration as a Tier 1 renewable energy source. Curtis Bay community members, high school students, activists, and scholar Chloe Ahmann argued that the project would also build upon the preexisting slow violence the neighborhood was facing in the form of further pollution. Curtis Bay is surrounded by various forms of industry such as parts of the petrochemical, steel, fertilizer, oil, and chemical industries, as well as a medical waste incinerator and various dumps. The way the impacts of these industries and other projects have accumulated over time is an example of slow violence. As described by Ahmann, health conditions – such as gastroschisis, cancers, and fatal cases of asthma – have appeared over multiple generations, all of which are concentrated in this neighborhood. Ahmann also points out how residents’ mindsets can illustrate the impact of slow violence. Many remarked on a feeling of normalcy about these conditions – that this was how it had always been. Others expressed frustrations about the inability to concretely connect current health conditions to their former occupations or long residency in the neighborhood that exposed them to hazards or unhealthy conditions.The Fairfield Renewable Energy Project was met with resistance and eventually stopped. It also brought attention to other acts of slow violence stemming from the industrial structure of the Curtis Bay neighborhood.
Jharia coalfields
The Jharia coalfields are the location of India's biggest and longest running coal mines. They account for a significant percentage of the country's coal production.Coal mining is an extractive industry because it is a process that removes natural resources from nature. Extractive processes have been recognized by Nixon to create a specific type of tension that is characteristic of slow violence. For example, the workers that initially arrive to do the extractive labor and those that remain after and live through the longer-term impacts have different experiences. In the case of the Jharia coalfields, this is evident in both impacts on workers’ health and impacts on the surrounding environment. Both are examples of slow violence because, while they have harmful effects on the peoples and environments in the area, these effects are gradual. It is these collective effects that gradually accumulate which Nixon identifies as slow violence. In the case of Jharia miners or other laborers, their health is impacted by consistent coal fires that release harmful chemicals like “sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, lead and methane” into the environment. The effects range from respiratory challenges that may develop into disorders and nervous system damage. Environmental impacts are also spread out over time. Before mining started, the areas were “thick forests…populated with tribal communities”. To create space for mining, these areas were deforested, and the tribal communities displaced. These communities also became “vulnerable to large-scale capitalist exploitation in the form of cheap causal labor”. The environmental slow violence that occurred in the area has appeared in the form of chemical changes in the soil and water, unpredictable land movement, underground fires, and physical landscape degradation. S. and Shah attribute this to “years of unscientific mining and lack of standard practices such as backfilling”.
The coal industry supports energy modernity, or “the improved conditions of social life enabled by energy transition from less efficient energy sources…to more efficient ones”. The physical and mental distance from urban environments that the Jharia coalfields embody is an example of the ways that the impacts of energy are often invisible, hidden from the consumer or actor. While energy is consumed, seemingly inconsequentially, the environment and the health of miners slowly deteriorates.
Indigenous reserves
Slow violence has been recorded as affecting the Indigenous peoples that once inhabited Yuquot, British Columbia. Indigenous peoples were relocated from Yuquot to Ahaminaquus Indian Reserve 12, in Vancouver Island by the Canadian government in the late 1960s The Department of Indian Affairs leased 30 acres of this land to Tasis Company who opened a Kraft pulp mill in 1968, on the same day of the closure of the Yuquot day school. The mill produced noise, air and water pollution, while also resulting in a road constructed over Muchalaht graves. Over time, the Department of Indian Affairs required the Indigenous peoples to give up their rights to reside on Ahaminaquus land, as well as their right to pursue health related claims from their residency. The Indigenous peoples claimed to have lost cultural opportunities and practices as a direct result of the pollution, as it was degrading the land. Paige Raibmon states that these circumstances represent modern-day colonialism.Policing
Contemporary policing has been reported as a form of slow violence against marginalized communities. Rory Kramer and Brianna Remster state that police impose slow violence on Black and Brown Americans through racial and class-based harms inflicted by the state. Slow violence results in cultural trauma for people of colour, which is defined as "when members of a collective feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future in fundamental and irrevocable ways."Women and slow violence
Women globally face instances of slow violence. Amy Piedalue who conducted research in Hyderabad, India states that the women "live and work in spaces of dispossession and marginalization", and that the slow violence they endure is specific to the dense urban settlement they exist in. They experience mobility constraints, due to economic resources being limited, as well as public safety concerns. Piedalue also reports that slow violence in these urban settlements is seen through illness, unemployment, hunger, the decaying of sanitation and infrastructures, and limited access to education.Gender-based violence has also been experienced in the context of layered disasters over time in Bangladesh. Rezwana highlights the multi-dimensional and extended temporality of slow violence as an important facet in disaster response and recovery.