Reconsidering Culture and Homicide

Abstract

This article fleshes out a perspective on culture and lethal violence using examples from two contexts where they are believed to be strongly linked: among rural southern Whites and urban Blacks. Concepts from the cultural paradigm which focuses on understanding how people use cultural resources instead of discerning the content of cultures are employed. Through the lenses of this alternative cultural paradigm, violence in these two settings is partly attributable to an abundance of strategies of action condoning the use of violence. Strategies of action pertinent to defensive or honor-based violence emerge where the law is unavailable and may be amplified by moderate or high levels of poverty. However, when socioeconomic disadvantage is so severe that there is widespread institutional breakdown, strategies of action promoting more predatory and instrumental forms of violence may also evolve. This is because mainstream institutions are a primary source of socialization where cultural tool kits containing strategies of action are expanded and diversified. When they are weak, socialization through street peer groups or illegal markets may be more pronounced, facilitating the contextual transference of violent scripts for action to situations other than those involving honor or character contests. Actors immersed in violent communities are not subsequently mired down in circumstances beyond their control. Through participation in violent activities, they can actively create and reinforce their own violent social environment.