ABSTRACT
The VRP projects consistently affirmed the significance of context-for theorizing, for practice, for policy. How "seriously" we as a society respond to an incident of violence varies by the situation within which it takes place. The study of punishment beatings in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for example, used the statement of politicians that the peace agreement had led to "an acceptable level of violence." The researchers were challenging this "acceptable" level because it denied the impact of such beatings on its victims. The assumptions about the social context of the politics of the "peace agreement," the collective tolerance of a population embedded in such politics, and expectations that witness intimidation was so rife that frontline youth or social workers had to constantly manage people's anxieties about punishment beatings combined to influence the way in which communities in Northern Ireland understood this form of torture (see Knox & Monaghan, 2003). That punishment beatings became a part of the political debate in some ways glossed over the devastating effects on individuals. Articulating the tension over levels of tolerance that perhaps tacitly associated punishment beatings with peace was necessary to challenge this form of violence, the researchers argued.
