An Integrated Multidisciplinary Model of Healing for Ending Community Violence: A Scoping Review

• In Event: Community Violence

Abstract

“Community violence” refers to interpersonal violence in public contexts (e.g., streets, public buildings). Though it occurs at the individual level (i.e., by individuals motivated to commit violence against specific others), in aggregate, these events may converge into community-level phenomena, from gun violence “epidemics” to nation-level genocide. Recurring community violence impacts perpetrator and victim, causing community-wide reductions in the sense of safety, quality of life, and group cohesion, among myriad other outcomes. Increasingly, practitioners of community violence intervention (CVI) have based their responses on achieving “healing,” roughly, returning individuals and communities to “good health.” However, the meaning of healing is often ambiguous, inhibiting coherent theorization and standardized measurement in the CVI field. With this understanding, we present results from a concept analysis synthesizing how healing is expressly conceptualized across disciplines and study contexts. We then present results from a scoping review of literature to present the evidence base on healing experiences and the breadth of research on healing and its correlates across levels of analyses. Finally, we present a conceptual model integrating interdisciplinary perspectives in theorizing the healing process and apply this to two examples of aggregate violence – urban gun violence and genocide. We conclude with recommendations for further research.

Authors

• Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill, Arizona State University

• Mangai Natarajan, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

• Gasana Gasasira John, University of Rwanda

• Bothwell Piason, Arizona State University

• Jay Szkola, Community Violence Prevention Project

• Munezero Yassin, Community Violence Prevention Project