Secular and religious narratives on violence: The boundary of the human in the governance of the poor

Abstract

The article analyses the encounters and confrontations in the public sphere in religious and secular discourses on violence. I suggest that the treatment of violence in these discourses pivots on the distinction between the human and the non-human, as well as the small nuances located occasionally on their boundaries. These are configured in unstable and varied forms in both their secular and religious versions, including too the meanings attributed to pain and suffering. The religious ideas of pain and sacrifice as paths to redemption already lead to both a rejection of and an implicit consent to the practices of torture, homicide, crime and violence. The repertoire of problematizations and micropolitical interventions surrounding violence points to the importance of gender relations in this field, highlighting the ethics that today structure certain conducts, religious and secular alike.