2. Definition
• What do you think it means?
• How is it different from direct violence?
3. Definition
• Systematic ways in which social structures harm or
otherwise disadvantage individuals
• “Structural violence is visited upon all those whose
social status denies them access to the fruits of
scientific and social progress.”—Dr. Paul Farmer
• Institutionalized elitism, ethnocentrism, classism,
racism, sexism, adultism, nationalism, heterosexism
and ageism
4. Effects
• “constraint of agency”
• What are some structural barriers or structural
inequalities that may extend to structural harm?
6. Some stats
• 291,000 deaths in US attributable to
poverty/income inequality
• US infant mortality rate is double for African
Americans than for Caucasians
• 46.2 million people live in poverty in US (about
15%--22% of children)
• About 700 million world wide are starving
• 1 in 4 children die before their 5th birthday
• 2.5 billion don’t have access to sanitation facilities
7. Relating the concept
• Do you find evidence of structural violence in the
HeLa book?
• Specific examples?
• Assigning culpability…
• How does structural violence relate to social
entrepreneurship?
