Perpetrators and Protectors: Centering Family Relations in Addressing Violence in Poor Neighbourhoods

This report asks, 'How and to what extent do families and kinship relations protect against, perpetrate and/or suffer from violence?' The concern with understanding how families cope with violence in respectively protective and perpetrative ways emerges out of a partnership between the Liberian Association of Psychosocial Services (LAPS), the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in South Africa (CSVR), the Balay Rehabilitation Centre in the Philippines and DIGNITY-the Danish Institute against Torture. This research uses intersectional analyses and ecological approaches to understand the relationship between families and violence. The analysis is based on experiences from past interventions as well as a systematic data collection project among some of the families involved in the interventions. The ambition was to enable an inductive process of reflection and innovation by putting different contexts into a structured conversation.