ABSTRACT
This chapter shifts our focus towards perpetration as action and develops a theory of action to underlie the study of perpetrators. It argues that violence can best be understood as violence. It draws on a rich tradition in social theory, including the concepts of frame, mentality, figuration, social norms and practices, to argue that it is a more productive analytical perspective to comprehend perpetrators and bystanders as ‘acting subjects’ whose actions should be the starting point for analysis. This chapter’s central thesis is thus that acts of perpetration, not perpetrators, are the analytically most promising avenue of inquiry; this resonates in the analysis of the empirical chapters on motivations and dynamics.
