Conceptualizing the violence of war using participatory mapping.

Background: The deliberate destruction of place is a core tactic of warfare, resulting in mass destruction of buildings, homes, and vital infrastructure, and spatial control and militarization of everyday life. Yet, despite how war dramatically undermines people’s lived environments, in examinations of conflict and displacement, we have yet to fully heed the call to mobilize place as a central determinant of health (de Leeuw, 2018). Our work responds to this need to understand the health implications of place-based attacks within conflict settings. Using data from participatory mapping and interviews with 75 children across multiple sectors of Palestine, we examined how ongoing assaults to place is a fundamental component of suffering within war. Methods: In this IRB-approved study, interviewers asked children (N=75) to draw maps of places significant to them in their neighborhood, and to use three different colors to denote places as safe, neutral, and unsafe. Then they were asked to describe their maps and within open-ended interviews, including walk-along interviews. Data were imported into qualitative software programs, coded, and analyzed using a constant comparative method. Results: Data revealed children’s regular interactions with surveillance, violence, destruction, and poverty resulting from the intrusion of political violence into homes and neighborhoods. Our analyses revealed the connections between these phenomena and children’s health and well-being. Our analysis revealed how war creates a violence that is not only felt against people but also against the geographic environment, reflecting the appropriateness of Hanafi’s characterization of the violence in Palestine as spacio-cide (2009). At the same time, findings from our study reveal the many ways that children find beauty, peace, agency, and a sense of continuity and shared identity from the spaces they inhabit and love. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that analyses focused on place broaden conceptualizations of the health impacts of political violence. In attending to the effects of destruction of people’s living environments within warfare, our international public health community is better equipped to design interventions addressing the effects of war and to better advocate for the health and human rights of those in conflict settings.