Don Weenink

don weenink

I am an associate professor in Sociology at the Department of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam and principal investigator of the GroupViolence research programme. One question I am working on now is how the course of antagonistic situations is affected by situational asymmetries (for instance: how supportive groups try to provide emotional support to one of opposing parties and how and to what extent this results in escalation of the conflict). Another question is how and to what extent the various cultural meanings expressed in violence are related to the emotional intensity of the interaction, and the opportunities to engage in either escalatory or de-escalatory action by the participants. Together with Raheel Dhattiwala and David van der Duin, I am now working on video analysis of violent interactions. In this project, we inquire how sequences of bodily behaviours of both the antagonistic parties and bystanders precede the escalatation or de-escalation of violence in public space. Prior to this research, I published on the forms and severity of youth violence (Sociological Forum), on the emotional dynamics of extreme street violence in (British Journal of Sociology), on rural and urban violence (British Journal of Criminology), and on violent moral holidays in (Human Figurations). Forthcoming publications are on social workers’ emotional and bodily management in threatening situations, together with Laura Keesman (forthcoming in Journal of Social Work) and on how robbers try to attain emotional dominance through bodily posturing, based on video analysis, with Floris Mosselman and Marie Lindegaard (forthcoming in Journal of Crime and Delinquency).