Slow violence
[2] Shannon O'Lear provides another definition stating that slow violence is indirect and latent, and that "it can result from epistemic and political dominance of particular narratives or understandings.
[1] In 2009, a trash incinerator called the Fairfield Renewable Energy Project was set to be constructed in Maryland's Curtis Bay neighborhood.
[7] Curtis Bay community members, high school students, activists, and scholar Chloe Ahmann argued that the project would also build upon the preexisting slow violence the neighborhood was facing in the form of further pollution.
As described by Ahmann, health conditions – such as gastroschisis, cancers, and fatal cases of asthma – have appeared over multiple generations, all of which are concentrated in this neighborhood.
[3] In the case of Jharia miners or other laborers, their health is impacted by consistent coal fires that release harmful chemicals like “sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, lead and methane” into the environment.
[10] The environmental slow violence that occurred in the area has appeared in the form of chemical changes in the soil and water, unpredictable land movement, underground fires, and physical landscape degradation.
[10] The physical and mental distance from urban environments that the Jharia coalfields embody is an example of the ways that the impacts of energy are often invisible, hidden from the consumer or actor.
Indigenous peoples were relocated from Yuquot to Ahaminaquus Indian Reserve 12, in Vancouver Island by the Canadian government in the late 1960s [13] The Department of Indian Affairs leased 30 acres of this land to Tasis Company who opened a Kraft pulp mill in 1968, on the same day of the closure of the Yuquot day school.
Amy Piedalue who conducted research in Hyderabad, India states that the women "live and work in spaces of dispossession and marginalization", and that the slow violence they endure is specific to the dense urban settlement they exist in.
[15] Piedalue also reports that slow violence in these urban settlements is seen through illness, unemployment, hunger, the decaying of sanitation and infrastructures, and limited access to education.
[17] Normalization of this occurrence over time within the poorer population contributed to a slow temporality, and the violence Chahim identified was in the form of consistent and inequitably disruption of lives and property without consent.
Pain describes how globalization, gentrification and displacement, and other psychological effects of violence experienced over time and across generations lead to "chronic urban trauma".
[22] Violence enacted through abandonment by political frameworks as an outcome of the mechanisms of power relations is said to leave gradual long-term effects on the mental and physical health of asylum seekers.
[15] Slow nonviolence approaches include protests, engagement from media sources, and public events, but as Piedalue states it operates mostly "through the intimacies of everyday life" and spaces such as homes or schools.
An example of this could be small victories in legislative battles, stalling or delaying projects momentarily, or slowly building public awareness to create a growing community of resistance.
These strategies use the timelines of judicial or legislative processes – which are often lengthy – as a barrier that limits the ability of those creating or contributing to slow violence.
Capturing the impacts of slow violence can interrupt the invisibility of long timelines over which it acts or unhide it from view if it is physically obscured or distant.
Photographs of the Jharia coalfields, as described by Meenakshi S. and Krupa Shah, contrast the “slowly unfolding horrors of slow violence” with the “quicker sensation of the visual medium”.
Slow violence, on the other hand, is distinguished by its gradual and cumulative nature, which frequently goes unrecognized due to its temporal complexity and lack of instant, dramatic exposure.
[28] In her research, Brydolf-Horwitz utilizes the example of Rehtaeh Parsons of Nova Scotia to demonstrate how digital technology may allow slow violence through repeated verbal and textual attacks, as well as the nonconsensual sharing of personal photos.
By offering terminology to express these experiences, Brydolf-Horwitz emphasizes the need of recognizing and treating the unseen and difficult-to-address components of digital slow violence.
Digital technology played a critical role in magnifying the abuse experienced by these individuals, prompting a public uproar and government action.
After attacking the victim at a party, the perpetrators widely shared a photograph of the incident, sparking an aggressive and unrelenting campaign of internet harassment against Parsons.
Through the power of social media, over 5.8 million viewers were exposed to the environmental disaster via a TikTok video created by Paul Cuffaro, showcasing the devastating fish kills.
Furthermore, the event's massive involvement on social media, notably on TikTok, where the hashtag "Red Tide" received over 27.3 million views, demonstrates the importance of digital activism in environmental campaigning.
The shift in media attention to the red tide occurrence, driven by user-generated material, demonstrates the dynamic capacity of internet communities to influence public discourse and perhaps shape legislative responses to environmental concerns.
In the realm of digital technology, surveillance capitalism represents a significant challenge, particularly through the mechanism of online behavioral advertising (OBA).
[30] This form of advertising, which tracks an individual's online activities to deliver personalized ads, has been identified as a source of "slow violence" against users.
This emotional disturbance originates from the intrusive nature of OBA, where users believe their privacy is continuously invaded, resulting to a state of perpetual vigilance and anxiety about what is being observed and inferred about their life.
Moving beyond optimizing platforms for advertising efficiency to prioritizing user control and privacy can help mitigate the slow violence inflicted by surveillance capitalism.
