In this lecture, I offer historical and ethnographic perspectives on affairs of blasphemy. My work, which is grounded in a detailed study of polemics sparked in Europe by accusations of blasphemy since the 1960s, suggests that this era witnessed contrasted attitudes regarding the cohabitation of the political and the religious aspects of public life. While Christians invested in accusations of ...

In the past ten years there has been increasing interest in rigorous, quantitative analysis of the determinants of civil war, ethnic violence, and other forms of domestic conflict. Scholars have analyzed the impact of ethno-linguistic fractionalization, terrain, economic growth, natural resources, and a variety of other factors. Little attention, however, has been paid to quantitatively estimat...

Since 9/11, and even more so with the atrocities committed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, violence in the name of God is predominantly perceived as a “different” kind of violence, which triggers more “absolute” and radical manifestations than its secular counter parts. In its first part, this article will challenge this so called exceptionalism of religious violence by questioning the neat divide b...

Research has documented a link between political violence and the functioning of individuals and communities. Yet, despite the hardships that political violence creates, evidence suggests remarkable fortitude and resilience within both individuals and communities. Individual characteristics that appear to build resilience against political violence include demographic factors such as gender and...

Among poor, urban adolescents, high rates of community violence are a pressing public health concern. This study relies on a contextual framework of stress and coping to investigate how coping strategies and involuntary stress responses may both mediate and moderate the relation between exposure to community violence and psychological well-being. Our sample consists of 223 ninth grade Latino ad...

Using data from two detailed, nationally representative, household datasets – the National Family Health Survey and the India Human Development survey – we explore whether women who are economically empowered (through work, earnings, or wealth) are less likely to experience domestic violence. We find that, while working women may be at a greater risk of violence, higher earnings are associated ...

This article attempts to summarize the situations of gender-based violence, a major public health issue. Due to the unequal power relations between men and women, women are violated either in family, in the community or in the State. Gender-based violence takes different forms like physical, sexual or psychological/ emotional violence. The causes of gender-based violence are multidimensional in...