INTRODUCTION. RETHINKING VIOLENCE FROM COMPLEXITY: A PERSPECTIVE FROM HISTORICITY

Rethinking violence from complexity: a perspective from historicity

The special issue of the journal World Complexity Science Academy is dedicated to reflecting on how violence is reproduced in society. The two axes from which violence is observed are historical and social, through case studies that seek to delve deeper into and recognize the sociohistorical conditions that influence the reproduction of violence.

The first article works with theoretical assumptions to consider how, through the symbiotic mechanisms and mediated immediacy of the occurrence of violence, other resources can be incorporated for reflection. The theoretical foundations come from the sociological work of Niklas Luhmann and Gesa Lindemann, respectively. Based on the understanding of society in a modern condition as a result of functional differentiation, where symbols are powerful enough to maintain expectations, the question is raised: How is it possible that violence in the peripheries can challenge the efficacy of the symbolic? This question is used to select and interpret elements of the theory itself to determine whether it serves a purpose, even if its reproduction is a paradox.

Regarding Gesa Lindemann, we work with her premises to observe violence, the disaggregation of the levels involved when a violent act occurs. Furthermore, she introduces the notion of historicity to point out that what may be recognized as violence at one time may change perspective at another. The notion of historicity is proposed to provide a meeting point between Luhmannian reflections and the recognition of the shift in perspective to name violence for actions that, at one time, were not so. The objectives of the article will lead the reader to ask questions, because it is not conclusive; rather, it aims to investigate, from both perspectives, how violence can be viewed from these theoretical positions.The second article analyzes the reproduction of violence from a historical perspective, proposing ways of observing actions and decisions. The context is the 21st century in Hungary. From the perspective of the author, Edit Fábo, we can identify elements to identify planes, expectations, and themes of communication. From this perspective, we can identify the limits from which violence can be recognized, in accordance with its temporal and spatial limitations.

Countess Ilona Zrínyi is one of the most well-known and venerable figures in Hungarian history. Descended from a prestigious noble family, she became the wife of Ferenc Rákóczi I and after his death Imre Thököly, Prince of Transylvania. Her life was marked by the fact that royal Hungary, led by the Habsburgs, was at that time repelling the Ottoman Empire, and the Principality of Transylvania, which was regarded as an eastern continuation of the Kingdom of Hungary, was under the latter’s jurisdiction, as the Treaty of Nagyvárad in 1538 only separated its government from the royal part of the country, without separating it from it. The Habsburg advance was accompanied in some parts of the country by an even stronger anti-Habsburg sentiment than the antipathy towards the Turks. The princess, on behalf of her Turkish vassal husband, successfully defended the castle of Munkács against the imperial troops for a long time but was finally forced to surrender it only by persuasion. Under the terms of the agreement, she went to Vienna, where she was separated from her children, and then followed her husband into Turkish exile. Countess Ilona Zrínyi would have had a good life, given her wealth and rank, but in the violent power games of history she bore the hardships with courage and dignity, and stood by her loved ones, her countr  and her principles. The first scholarly biography was published in the second half of the 19th century, in which the countess, who stood her ground even in hardship, was portrayed as a model of patriotism, educated femininity and a faithful wife. This assessment of the princess’s life became commonplace and was confirmed by the press of the time, including the Vasárnapi Ujság.

The third article brings together a theoretical perspective to problematize the acute crisis of violence in Mexico regarding forced disappearances. By revisiting the concepts of State, Democracy, Justice, and Historical Memory, it seeks to redefine the violence that has paralyzed state structures and, as an unintended consequence, led to the organization of citizens into a civil society capable of seeking out their missing persons and demanding justice. Based on the analytical proposal of Pedro González Corona.

This paper focus on the case of the Collective Families of the Disappeared Orizaba- Cordoba (FDOC) and the dolls created especially for the buscadoras by an artist connected to these tragedies. The healing dolls become a numinous link between the disappeared person and this world. These healing dolls, or children, as the mothers call them, possess numinous characteristics. As artistic expressions fabricated using garments that belonged to disappeared people, these dolls carry more than material memories, rather, they become portals of unspoken communication. In Levinasean terms, they constitute the Shadow of a crushing reality. Hence, the possibility and space—for love becomes the only means of healing for the mothers and family members who decide to adopt a healing child. Since the birth and use of healing children does not occur in a vacuum, a phenomenology of the life of a collective and their healing dolls must consider multiple components of the reality that bear the unbearable experience of having a disappeared loved one.

Javier Preciado´s article addresses gender based violence based on the theoretical developments of Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos, a Mexican social anthropologist who pioneered the naming and recognition of traditional forms of violence against Mexican women. Therefore, the research explores elements such as romantic love, the dynamics of nuclear families, and women´s work contexts in the private and public spheres. The objective is to reveal how violence is reproduced in everyday life, its permissiveness, naturalization, and invisibility.

Symbolic violence is present in different spaces of woman’s lives and it can be materialized in the form of what Lagarde calls under the concept of Cautiverio -captivity-, those are addressed in this paper, from the family as an scenario of transmission of responsibilities to women; education, as the beginning of a double or triple shift and romantic relationship as the way out of the responsibilities with the nuclear family and the origins of a new form of organization that continues to link women to reproductive work, but, at the same time, it locks them definitively in the ranks of productive work and therefore in an endless double shift without any recognition at all, this as the result of socialization and the reproduction of forms of symbolic violence that they face on a daily basis in different areas of their lives.

Finally, Ramón Ayala examines school dynamics through them, offering readers a perspective on how violence is reproduced. Through his theoretical reading of Henri Lefebvre, he exposes the inequalities students face. His starting point is the curriculum, that is, the general guidelines from which education is implemented.

As part of a broader exercise, the text proposes new theoretical paths that allow analyzing the body production processes for the investigation of inequalities phenomena and the exercise of violence. The work presents an extrapolation of Henri Lefebvre´s theory of space production and it is supported by the school case as a body intervention one. First of all, the general ideas of some theories of reproduction are reviewed to recognize the educational process as an intervention of the body. Subsequently, the possibility of thinking about the body as territory based on a simple analysis between the qualities of both categories. The core part of the writing is developed in an extrapolated exercise from Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the space trialectics applied to the body production process. Three main ideas are discussed: the social body as a social product, the trialectics of the social body and the curriculum as a conceived body

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