The Edited Volume

Rachel Locke, Kelsey Paul Shantz, Andrei Serbin Pont, and Jai-Ayla Sutherland

Progress in addressing increasing levels of violence globally will require action and leadership from cities. In this introduction, we give grounding to the genesis of this volume, its purpose and components, and key concepts to guide the reader. We describe the core challenges and opportunities related to violence reduction and offer a novel framework of identity-based mass violence as an important analytical lens, which brings together the fields of atrocity prevention, urban violence, and peacebuilding, and highlights their converging pathways. With the majority of violence occurring outside of conflict zones, how should we unpack the systems and structures that enable large-scale and widespread violence to persist? This opening positions the volume as an important contribution to research, policy, and practice, one that squares off directly against the preexisting failures of collaboration until now, including a lack of recognition of the magnitude of such violence. We evoke a hopeful message, drawn from academia, practitioner knowledge, and voices from those who have experienced such violence and transformative healing firsthand. As the reader, you are invited to engage deeply with the evidence and stories presented in this volume.

Key Words: identity-based mass violence, IBMV, conflict, oppression, mass violence, atrocity prevention, urban violence, structural violence, acute violence, chronic violence, peacebuilding, power, politics, policy, sexual and gender-based violence, racial violence, ethnic violence, violence against migrants, perpetrators, victims, cities, urban studies, sociology, political science, health

Ammar Azzouz

Cities are the sites of urban violence, mass destruction of architecture, and large-scale displacement of communities. While we often hear about the destruction of cities in times of war, invasion, and occupation as in Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, and Sudan, we hear less about the destruction of cities in times of “peace.” In this chapter, Azzouz explains how many cities have been damaged in peace and war, and when the lines between them blur. Through a wide range of cases, he shows how architecture has been weaponized as a tool to collectively punish communities, erase their presence, and make their neighborhoods, towns, and cities uninhabitable. Very often, this destruction is targeted toward selected communities based on their political opinion, religion, race, and ethnicity. Even when destruction ends, the suffering of victims who lose their homes does not end. Azzouz, therefore, argues that we need to shift the attention from the focus on the scenes of destruction to the afterlife of erasure, when everyday life becomes a war in itself. The chapter concludes with a call for a global conversation about reconstruction as many war-torn cities and their communities search for a future without ruins.

Key Words: domicide, slow violence, cultural heritage, war-torn cities

Alberto Pereira

This story captures an art installation Pereira created on a rooftop in the Villa Kennedy, a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro with one of the highest rates of violence in the city. The neighborhood was founded on a history of forced displacement of marginalized communities who are still impacted to this day by the inequalities and injustices reinforced by state structures. The prologue is written from the perspective of a piece of paper. The rest of the chapter explores connections between youth, street art, and social and political action. The chapter focuses specifically on a technique called lambe-lambe, the Brazilian term used for public art installations that are made from paper or posters held by glue.

Key Words: lambe-lambe, street art, urban art, public art, visual art, youth, activism, posters, political action, markets, advertising, commerce, consumption, institutions, politics, power, profit, copresence, reeducation, social, territorialization, deterritorialization, culture, Brazil, palimpsest

Gary Milante

This chapter examines the role of evidence and data—as two distinct and necessary components of knowledge—in understanding and addressing identity-based mass violence (IBMV). Milante prepares the reader for how to interpret the information shared throughout the volume and discusses a range of evidence of IBMV that goes beyond violent deaths to include assaults, sexual violence, and chronic structural violence.

Key Words: Gaza, Israel, International Criminal Court, Genocide, political violence, crimes against humanity, war crimes, police violence, terrorism, one-sided violence, crimes of aggression, intent, systemic violence, structural violence, statistics, measurement, sources, trust, mortality, Sustainable Development Goal 16, conflict, Palmira, Bosnia, Pelotas, Brazil, Syria, state violence, nonstate violence, assault, sexual violence, shootings, extortion, property crime, survey, focus group, survivors, eyewitness account, Tijuana, India, participatory processes, Baltimore, domicide, United States, Colombia, disappeared, hate crimes, judicial, Kenya, negative peace, South Africa, Flint (MI), Phoenix, New York City, early warning, risk, state government, private sector

Areli Palomo Contreras and Anonymous

What Dwells in Casa de Luz is a story that immerses us in the depths of a collective experience and gives life to a unique refuge called Casa-Colectiva Casa de Luz. Created by and for migrant members of the LGBTQ+ community and located in the city of Tijuana, at the border between Mexico and the United States, the Casa Colectiva exists in two dimensions: the social dimension—where all kinds of human relationships reside, though invisible to our eyes—and the physical, tangible dimension of everyday life. The origins of this house are steeped in intertwined relationships of violence and solidarity, which are transmuted into hope. At its foundation lies the collective experience of death, disappearance, discrimination, solidarity, and kinship during the first mass caravans of undocumented and displaced migrants in 2018 and 2019—traveling from Central America to the United States—and their settlement in the city of Tijuana. The experiences of four trans women and the launch of a mobile collective kitchen, within this context, lay bare the whirlwind of relationships formed in that ghostly social dimension that extends its roots into our daily lives. Thus, Casa de Luz emerges as a living being, nourished by all kinds of relationships, and in our physical dimension, the house—both livable and lived-in—is a symbol of hope and solidarity.

Key Words: social dimension, migrants, LGBTQ+, solidarity, caravans, collective kitchens, relationships of violence

Kate Ferguson and Andy Fearn

This chapter engages with the concept of identity-based violence, mapping its boundaries, articulating the phenomenon, and making the case for why this framing is useful for and in cities for prevention. It offers shared roots and risk factors of identity-based violence before considering the people, systems, transactions, and behaviors that implement or enable identity-based violence. It considers how identity-based violence evolves, intensifies, gathers momentum, and becomes systematic and or widespread, and therefore mass. It then turns to how such violence can be slowed, halted, or prevented within the city. The chapter ends by looking to the future of identity-based violence in cities, identifying common threats and opportunities for prevention. Running through the chapter is an interrogation of the implications of understanding and preventing identity-based violence for and in cities, reflecting on the foundational work on identity-based violence Protection Approaches has contributed over the past decade. The chapter will be framed by Protection Approaches’ mission to transform how identity-based violence is understood so we can transform how it is prevented. The chapter is rooted in the organization’s position of working from and in London.

Key Words: prevention, preparedness, community, risk factors, urban planning, structural change

Michal Braier and Efrat Cohen Bar

Braier and Cohen Bar use geographic information system maps and storytelling to show how the Israeli government is weaponizing urban planning in Jerusalem against the city’s Palestinian community. Zoning plans, in particular, are used to restrict, rather than protect, the Palestinian residents’ options for land and housing security. They examine policies that enable unapproved Palestinian homes to be destroyed by the Israeli government, applying bureaucratic and structural forms of violence on Palestinian urban space.

Key Words: ethnonational segregation, urban planning, home demolition

Ariana Markowitz

This chapter features stories about concrete, physical things in cities that enact structural, sociospatial systems and processes of identity-based mass violence. These things occur over time and often out of sight. Except perhaps to the people experiencing them, they may not even register as violence. As a result, if and when these things devolve into crisis for the rest of us, the tipping point can feel like a sudden tragedy, an accident, a disaster. The stories in this chapter—of contaminated water in Flint, Michigan; inequitable access to shade in Phoenix, Arizona; excessive exposure to artificial light in New York; and indifference to the safety of social housing in London—make visible how structural violence is a precondition for atrocity violence. Preventing atrocities, then, demands shifting our gaze “beyond the optical facade of immediate peril” to the structural violence that preceded it.

Key Words: structural violence, heat, light, social housing, health, marginalization, visibility

Serena Wiebe and Alexander Turner

In this story of growing up in Bristol, UK, the authors capture the class and racial divides of the city through the personal story of Serena Wiebe, who avoided gangs and found her way to leadership through the support of a local boxing club.

Key Words: youth/young person, Bristol (UK), boxing, mental health, drugs, gangs, race, class, economic fractures, coach, suicide, violence, school, mural, gentrification, knife crime, employment, discrimination, stigmatization, division, abuse, stabbing, racism, inequality

Antônio Jacinto Sampaio

Urban violence sheds light on a paradox affecting cities on a global scale: contemporary urban life is about plurality and coexistence in globally connected spaces but is also frequently affected by violence that fragments the urban space along invisible borders, competing armed actors, safe and unsafe zones. Violence and insecurity are not equally distributed along the urban space but cluster in certain areas that become stages for disputes for local political and economic control: nonstate actors providing security (often linked to extortion rackets), criminal groups controlling illicit economies, politically connected militias vying for power, and rival communities competing for space or resources. This chapter identifies a common mechanism driving urban armed violence: the intensification of boundaries and political identities that divide the urban space. This fragmentation breaks down the flow of people, products, and information that characterize contemporary cities. It also reflects a fragmentation of state institutions and political authority at the local level, tying vulnerable communities to the whims of predatory actors in situations of armed conflict, intercommunity tensions, and organized crime. Despite the varying ways urban violence manifests, identifying common mechanisms through which violence emerges in cities can help communities and authorities collaborate and respond.

Key Words: urban violence, armed violence, armed conflict, organized crime, militias, Charles Tilly

Alhakam Shaar

This chapter examines the links between structural and acute violence through a focus on the city of Aleppo prior to and as a result of the Syrian civil war. The author describes the mechanisms of state-induced structural violence alongside the acute manifestations of violence, illustrating their intertwined effects on the community’s resilience and social bonds and the physical city itself. The chapter examines the mechanisms of state-induced structural violence. This includes the role of the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad in fostering a climate of fear and repression through systematic violence and coercion, leading to dire consequences for Aleppo’s social fabric, its people, and its physical infrastructure.

Key Words: Syria, revolution, forced displacement, Arab Spring, Assad, urban planning, structural violence, acute violence, power, cycles of violence, cycles of harm, civil war, enclaving of cities, urban cleaving, socioeconomic cleaving, urbicide, Alawites, Sunnis, Twelver Shia, Ba’ath Party, “Eighties Events” (student) protests, executions, martial law, informal-formal duality, forced disappearance, trauma, ISIS, social exclusion, internally displaced person(s), displacements, informal settlements

Juan Martínez d’Aubuisson and Sarah Meléndez

Using the format of illustrated journalism, Melendez and Martínez tell the story of Jonas, who is falsely accused of being a gang member and is imprisoned under Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s dictatorship. The story follows the steps of his mother, Eva, who navigates and falters in the Salvadoran regime’s judicial system. It is, in essence, the struggle of a mother to continue feeding her son.

Key Words: El Salvador, regime, Nayib Bukele, dictatorship, gangs, motherhood, imprisonment

Kerry Whigham

This chapter explores how art can transform public spaces impacted by identity-based mass violence (IBMV), addressing both acute and structural violence. It argues that regimes use urban space for control, but artistic interventions can reclaim these areas for justice and healing. Drawing on examples from Argentina, Colombia, and Bosnia, it details how art can serve as a powerful tactic for victim groups to rally support and generate empathy. Arguing that the reimagining of public space is crucial for addressing the resonating effects of IBMV, these examples demonstrate how artistic interventions can rebuild communities and promote reconciliation. The chapter reinforces art’s potential to transform public spaces into areas for justice, healing, and community rebuilding, offering restorative salves to the wounds of IBMV.

Key Words: art, public space, justice, healing, Argentina, Colombia, Bosnia, memory

Mariana Medina Barragán, Luz Adriana López Medina, and Alejandra Medina Barragán

In the midst of the armed conflict in Colombia, Asha, a 12-year-old peasant girl who was studying at a boarding school, is kidnapped by the FARC-EP guerrilla to force her to join their ranks, where she is subjected to multiple forms of violence by her peers and superiors, including cruel and inhuman treatment and sexual violence. After being recovered with other companions by the military forces in the “Berlin operation,” and while still children, they had to face a long journey in various state institutions that, instead of guaranteeing their rights, treated them like criminals and put them at risk of being recruited again in the urban context. Although several decades have passed since these events and she has become a leader who demands justice for what happened, her story is that of thousands of girls and boys who continue to be linked by armed and criminal groups in the country.

Key Words: children, recruitment, sexual violence, reintegration

Friederike Bubenzer

The World Bank estimates that by 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Most of this urban growth will occur in the world’s least-developed countries, where poor economic and political governance as well as environmental pressures will force people to seek opportunities in cities. This chapter looks at why life in many cities around the world has a particularly negative effect on its citizens’ well-being and how, despite this, we might develop more-resilient cityscapes that can proactively sow an equitable ethics of care as part of identity-based urban-violence-prevention efforts. The chapter argues for trauma-transformative and restorative approaches rooted in an ethics-of-care framework, emphasizing the importance of addressing legacies of violence, promoting well-being, and restoring dignity. By prioritizing inclusive urban design, accessible public transport, and community participation, cities can create safety nets of care, transforming themselves from potential drivers of violence into catalysts for social cohesion and human flourishing.

Key Words: ethics of care, urban-violence prevention, structural violence, resilience, urban design, public transport, public spaces, trauma transformative, restorative, well-being, dignity, accessibility

Barbara Sherrod

Sherrod’s essay on restorative practices to make schools more fair and just highlights the structural violence, especially against Black girls, that has been codified and maintained through school policies and practice. In so doing, she shows how schools become unsafe spaces for some children and how racial bias and unequal responses to youth behavior have damaging consequences for individuals and communities more broadly.

Key Words: restorative justice, Black girls, Black people, Black women, youth, education, schools, restorative circle, abuse, Baltimore, structural violence, acute violence, race, trauma, bullying, physical violence, emotional violence, restorative conversations, white teachers, white people, Brown people

Prince Charles Dickson

Decoding Plateau State, Nigeria’s farmer-herder conflict reveals its deep roots in history, society, economy, and politics, intensified by ethnic and religious exploitation. This work unveils the invaluable role of local peacebuilders navigating this complex web. They offer solutions rooted in cultural nuance, build essential trust, and foster community ownership—key to preventing escalation and forging durable peace. Engaging these unsung heroes is not just insightful; it is transformative for lasting solutions.

Key Words: Plateau State, Nigeria, Riyom, Bassa, local peacebuilders, intercommunal clashes, religious tensions, farmer-herder conflicts, historical roots of conflict, social fabric, Indigenous wisdom, healing, reconciliation, resilience, community engagement, dialogue, sustainable peacebuilding, Gyang Bhuba, Danlami Madaki, humanitarian crisis, trust-building, community ownership

Rose Mbone

Founder of the community-based organization The Legend Kenya, Rose Mbone shares an account of how women have led the transformation of community and individual healing in the midst of collective trauma through their shared leadership and courage. Mbone grapples with police-community relations, including how women in informal settlements of Nairobi have found healing from trauma following extrajudicial killings of loved ones—mostly men—and, from this, built stronger social ties between police and the community.

Key Words: trauma, trauma informed, trauma healing, trauma awareness, resilience, mental health, structural violence, resilience, extrajudicial killing, informal settlements, community-based training, community-police relations, community-based training, poverty, youth, reintegration, hope, cycles of violence, justice, self-care, peacebuilding

Natalia Garcia Cervantes

Violence permeates, transforms, and hinders space. Specifically, identity-based mass violence can profoundly alter space, communities, and the relationships between inhabitants and their physical environment. This chapter delves into the impacts of inconspicuous identity-based mass violence in urban areas and examines official and unofficial potential planning responses. This chapter explores the impacts of identity-based mass violence in urban areas, alongside potential planning responses, both official and unofficial. It seeks to understand how this form of violence influences space and how urban planning can, at times, act as an oppressive force, perpetuating subtle yet insidious manifestations of identity-based violence. By emphasizing participatory visual methodologies such as community mapping and autophotography—or photography by participants—the chapter highlights approaches to bridge the gap between official planning institutions and communities, fostering planning practices that are inclusive of local identities.

Key Words: urban planning, participatory planning, identity-based mass violence, violence prevention

ElsaMarie D’Silva

D’Silva opens with a story about a 14-year-old girl in India who drops out of school because of her fears of gender-based violence. The girl resumes school after participating in a workshop with Safecity, which empowers girls and young women to understand and address such violence. D’Silva tells the story of how Safecity was founded and has educated and trained young women and young men on how sexual violence affects them. Her piece includes photographs and illustrations of the many projects Safecity has sponsored.

Key Words: Safecity, gender-based violence, sexual violence, safer cities, gender

Flavia Carbonari

This chapter examines effective and promising city-led urban-violence-prevention and protection practices. It argues that these efforts have the potential to address both structural and acute violence by directing resources toward marginalized places and groups affected by social and economic exclusion, with the aim to mitigate the impact of structural inequalities and historical discrimination. The chapter also highlights how these efforts acknowledge the identities and potential of these marginalized groups as active contributors to solutions. It also discusses how the intentional design and targeting of such policies and programs, guided by an equity-and-justice lens, are evident in the increased incorporation of public health approaches within public policies, with a combination of social interventions and improvements in criminal justice responses, along with enhanced capacities of authorities and communities to prevent violence and improve responses. The integration of a public health approach is particularly crucial for addressing the root causes of various forms of violence, especially identity-based violence, with its systemic and structural drivers. While the chapter acknowledges the challenge of sustaining intervention results, even with a combination of short- and long-term measures, it underscores the ample evidence available from which valuable lessons can be learned.

Key Words: urban violence, public health approach, gang violence, community violence, upstream prevention

José Luis Pardo Veiras and Felipe Luna Espinosa

This chapter tells the story of Plateros, a neighborhood in Mexico City deeply affected by violence. Through testimonies from residents and police officers, it narrates how the Ceasefire program has helped reduce homicides by promoting a more humane and empathetic approach by law enforcement. Additionally, it explores the difficult choices between revenge and forgiveness faced by those affected by the violence.

Key Words: Mexico, militarization, police, homicides, youth, neighborhoods, drugs, gun violence, retributive violence, revenge killings, war on drugs, Alto al Fuego (Ceasefire program), concentrated violence, (organized) criminal groups, structural violence, well-being, social dynamics of violence, robbery, mental health, sexism, trust, empathy

Shukria Dellawar

This chapter offers a deeply personal and critical examination of the dual trauma experienced by an Afghan-American woman in the aftermath of 9/11, juxtaposing the collective grief of Americans with the often-overlooked suffering of Afghan civilians during the US-led “War on Terror.” The author recounts her dual trauma as an American and as a member of the Afghan diaspora. The chapter critiques systemic failures: the prolongation of war, media distortions, and the erasure of Afghan voices in peace processes. The author exposes the human costs of war, from civilian casualties to the psychological toll on veterans and families, while challenging the status-quo narratives. Her account underscores the hypocrisy of sanctions and the abandonment of Afghan civilians postwithdrawal, framing the conflict as a “colossal failure” of leadership. Interspersed with original poetry, the narrative also explores her struggle with identity, burnout, and the healing power of creative expression. Ultimately, this chapter serves as a poignant call for humility in policymaking, accountability for wartime atrocities, and a reimagined approach to peacebuilding centered on empathy and shared humanity.

Key Words: trauma, Afghanistan war, peacebuilding, art, healing, identity conflict, atrocity prevention, creative expression

Rachel Locke and Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

This chapter discusses how the transformative ideas presented by the contributors can be applied in concrete and meaningful ways to policy, practice, and research. The chapter begins with a discussion of principles that were both crucial to the articulation of the recommendations and are similarly crucial to any proposal to address identity-based mass violence. The human-centered values of this volume demand a focus not only on outcomes but also on process, as these principles attest. The chapter then focuses on practical areas of action, from capacity building to funding to shifting narratives, and more. This chapter shifts from prescriptive policy solutions toward a way of thinking about policy that is more appreciative of the themes of identity, power, and space as a transformative, preventative agenda.

Key Words: community, structural violence, acute violence, prevention

Rachel Locke, Kelsey Paul Shantz, Andrei Serbin Pont, and Jai-Ayla Sutherland

Our collective knowledge on both why identity-based mass violence (IBMV) occurs and how it can be addressed in cities is made stronger when informed by more-complete perspectives and expressions of evidence. To that end, this volume has brought together expert analysis and testimony from around the world and from distinct, yet related, fields of practice to demonstrate the critical role of cities in reducing IBMV. Honoring the complexity of the challenges IBMV presents, this volume set out to disrupt traditional approaches to gathering academic and policy insights; in addition to peer-reviewed research, contributors explored identity-based mass violence through analysis, art, storytelling, communication, and community building. The volume results in a call to action for those who know our status quo has failed to reduce structural and acute forms of violence, so often rooted in identity. This volume calls on each of us to truly see one another and to lean into the hope that through working together we can make this world a place of promise and prosperity for all.

Key Words: identity-based mass violence, peacebuilding, atrocity prevention, urban violence reduction, community, art, storytelling, structural violence, acute violence, lived experience, analysis, action, rights, empathy, policy, practice