Väkivalta uskonnollisissa liikkeissä : teoreettisia lähtökohtia hengellisen väkivallan tutkimiseen

Authors

• Aini Linjakumpu

Abstract

The violence practiced by religious movements is a widely examined area in political science. Usu­ally the subject of the study is inter-group violence between either different religious groups or between religious groups and other social entities. Intragroup violence, i.e., violence practiced by a religious movement towards its own members, has received less attention. Nevertheless, there are many practices, traditions and incidents within religious movements which are not necessary identified as violence, even though they can be highly questionable in themselves and even fatal for some members of those movements. However, there have been increasing attempts to concep­tualize these systems of violence, and as an example the concept of spiritual violence has been applied. In this article, conceptual and theoretical tools are introduced to understand spiritual violence in the context of political science. Among others, the ideas of violence, power and authority elabo­rated by Hannah Arendt will be considered in relation to spiritual violence, and also, the considera­tions of Johan Galtung and Willem Schinkel about structural violence and violence as a reduction of being will be taken into account. Lastly, the article analyzes the idea of vulnerability as an element of spiritual violence.