UCD School of Sociology – Seminar Series 2017-2018 Wednesday, September 20th, 2017, 3.00pm Speaker: Prof. Sylvia Walby (Lancaster University) Theorising Changes in Violence Is violence increasing or decreasing? The answer to this deceptively simple question depends on the concept and measurement of violence, which depend on how violence is situated within a theory of society. Taking issue with Zizek and Bourdieu, the paper argues for a concept of violence as a significant and distinctive institutional domain, separate from the economy, polity and civil society. Taking issue with Weber, it argues that the state never had a monopoly of legitimate violence in its territory, while violence against women and minorities went uncriminalised. The implications of this conceptualisation of violence for its measurement, challenge Pinker’s thesis that violence is declining. Rather, drawing on analysis of data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, the increase in violent crime, driven by domestic violence against women, is made visible. Bio Sylvia Walby OBE is Distinguished Professor of Sociology, UNESCO Chair of Gender Research, and Director of the Violence and Society UNESCO Centre at Lancaster University. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK; and holds an OBE. She has published on violence, including, with colleagues, The Concept and Measurement of Violence against Women and Men (Policy Press, 2017), and Stopping Rape: Towards a Comprehensive Policy (Policy Press 2015). Other work situating violence in a theory of society includes: Crisis (Polity 2015); The Future of Feminism (Polity 2011); and Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities (Sage 2009). Current research is on trafficking in human beings, theorizing violence, and the restructuring of the EU. Her research has engaged many aspects of Europe and she was the founding President of the European Sociological Association. Personal website: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/sociology/about-us/people/sylvia-walby. .