Jack Eller

Global Center for Religion Research

Jack David Eller is a cultural anthropologist, Head of Global Anthropology of Religion at the Global Center for Religion Research, Denver, USA, and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Woxsen University, Hyderabad, India. His research interests include religion and religious violence, ethnicity and ethnic conflict, psychological anthropology, and contemporary populism and authoritarianism. He is the author of multiple articles and books, including Violence and Culture: A Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Approach, From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict: An Anthropological Perspective on International Ethnic Conflict, and Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence: Religious Violence Across Culture and History. He is also the editor of The Anthropology of Donald Trump: Culture and the Exceptional Moment.

2chapters authored

Latest work with IntechOpen by Jack Eller

People are dying or suffering all over the world from the plague of gun violence, and countries and entire regions are reeling from the damage, instability, and insecurity that gun violence causes. Taking a global perspective on the problem, and identifying correlates such as drug trafficking, gun trafficking, state failure, ethnic and political conflict, terrorism and war, and the consequent rise of personal fear and insecurity leading to more citizens arming themselves or hiring armed security forces, the chapters in this volume look far beyond the United States, which monopolizes public and scholarly attention, to include India, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. The chapters explore and compare histories of, causes of, correlates of, and responses to gun violence across this broad region, predominantly in the Global South, identifying commonalities and differences in the character, incidence, and attempted prevention of gun violence. The volume aims to inform readers about gun violence in these often-overlooked places and to encourage intensified quantitative and qualitative research into the geographical and historical diversity of such violence and the steps taken by various countries to curb it. Only with a cross-cultural and transhistorical perspective can we hope to lower the personal and social cost that gun violence inflicts on populations around the globe.

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Gun Violence and Prevention

Edited by Jack Eller

Chapters authored

In the Shadow of the Giant: Gun Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean

By Jack David Eller

The United States dominates most policy debates and academic studies of gun violence, but this dominance overshadows the often much higher rate of firearm-related injury and death inflicted in its southern neighbors. This chapter explores guns and gun violence in Latin America and the Caribbean, where some countries experience war-level death rates from firearms despite considerably lower rates of gun ownership in those countries. The chapter presents data—which is unfortunately often scarce, incomplete, or dated—on the region as a whole and on specific countries, identifying trends but also distinct and important variation, both geographically and historically. This variation challenges simplistic explanations in terms of the region’s violent past or an enduring “culture of violence.” The discussion thus then turns to the elucidation of factors that influence the incidence of gun violence, from poverty, urbanization, gangs, and drug trafficking to concerns about weak states and personal security. Finally, the chapter shares some of the gun policies and regulations in the region, surveying the steps that countries have taken—and others like its great northern neighbor can take—to curtail the damage and loss of life attributed to guns.

Part of the book: Gun Violence and Prevention

Introductory Chapter: A World of Gun Violence

By Jack David Eller

Part of the book: Gun Violence and Prevention

Jack Eller

Latest work with IntechOpen by Jack Eller

Gun Violence and Prevention

Chapters authored

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