Download full text
(875.3Kb)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.47.2022.07
Exports for your reference manager
The Emergence and Unfolding of Violent Events: A Transactional Approach
Die Entstehung und Entfaltung von gewaltsamen Ereignissen: Ein transaktionaler Ansatz
[journal article]
Abstract Standard approaches to the analysis of crisis situations either take some psychological stance, where the individual is the unit of analysis, or they investigate groups of actors taking turns, where individuals act following their own interpretation of what others have done. Philosophers have charac... view more
Standard approaches to the analysis of crisis situations either take some psychological stance, where the individual is the unit of analysis, or they investigate groups of actors taking turns, where individuals act following their own interpretation of what others have done. Philosophers have characterized these two approaches as self-actional and interactional. Actions and interpretations clearly can be assigned to one or the other actor, which allows allocating the responsibility for a violent event to someone "culprit." A radically different, rarely chosen approach is a transactional one, where each action is understood as joint action both in space and in time that cannot be decomposed into independent individual contributions. In this paper, following a sketch of the differences in the epistemological under- pinnings between standard and transactional approaches, exemplifying analyses are presented and discussed from a violent encounter that left a streetcar passenger dead and a police officer before the courts of justice for homicide. Discussion topics include the attribution of cause and effect, understanding the historical trajectories of participant actors, and the consequences of analyzing events in terms of events (not substantive entities, and inter-actions).... view less
Keywords
violence; interaction; transaction; causality; cause; impact analysis; incident
Classification
General Sociology, Basic Research, General Concepts and History of Sociology, Sociological Theories
Social Problems
Free Keywords
self-action; violent events
Document language
English
Publication Year
2022
Page/Pages
p. 153-176
Journal
Historical Social Research, 47 (2022) 1
Issue topic
Visibilities of Violence: Microscopic Studies of Violent Events and Beyond
ISSN
0172-6404
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed