Rethinking Structural Violence

The concept of structural violence first developed in the 1960s as a way to explain disparities in health and development between wealthy countries and impoverished postcolonial states. This idea emerged out of Dependency Theory and defined poverty and disease in the developing world as the product of exploitation by colonial or neocolonial powers. Contemporary researchers continue to invoke structural violence to explain international health trends, but a review of recent literature reveals that the concept is increasingly outdated and poorly theorized. It is especially problematic when used to describe contemporary epidemics of infectious disease. In this paper I offer a brief overview of the concept of structural violence and critique the way it has been used to explain the political economy of two recent outbreaks: Ebola in West Africa and cholera in Haiti. Ultimately the paper concludes that these scholars claim to be explaining epidemics but instead use their research as a form of moralistic storytelling that leaves the structural dimensions of health unexplored.