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Structural violence, the concept of macro, system-level inequality and oppression, finds its root in the modernist discourse through the work of Johan Galtung, a Norwegian sociologist, mathematician, and peace studies scholar. Galtung (1969) defined structural violence as violence for which "there is no such [personal or direct] actor" (p.170). Galtung distinguishes between violence created by a kown person as direct, and that which occurs at the structural level when no distinct perpetuator can be established. A few years after publishing his initial works on structural violence, Galtung and Tord Höivik (1971) extended their analysis and sought to develop a formulaic representation of violence's operationalization. The authors created a typology of violence, and differentiate between "violence that kills slowly kills quickly, violence that is anonymous and violence that has an author" (p.173). This entry focuses on the various theories that have informed the concept of structural violence.
Full Encyclopedia Entry available at https://www.academia.edu/7435787/_2014_Encyclopedia_entry_Structural_Violence_