Structuralist Violence

Abstract: Though narratives have been called on to expose the operation of structural violence, they threaten to reinforce neoliberal ideas of agency. This essay argues for a return to structuralism not in order to construct a universal grammar but to take narratives apart. Structuralism looks for virtual borders and connections, durable cuts and links. It reveals how apparently bounded forms are constituted and given power through the way they organize differences, adjuncts, substitutes, and contraries. Structuralism's interlocking abstractions can shed light now on kinds of violence that are not personal and not events.