Domestic Violence As Eigenvalue in Contemporary Society: A Sociocybernetic Approach to the Construction of a Form of Gender Based Violence in Chile

Domestic violence, including several forms of gender based violence, does not exist independently from an observer, neither is this observer limited to a domestic realm. In contemporary society, domestic violence is constructed as such in a network of operations that encompasses both private and public realms. This network involves a diversity of human and non-human agents – questionnaires, photographs, medical instruments, etc. – and coordinates public policy, legal, scientific and political criteria. As a result of these operations, experiences of violence are transformed into cases of domestic violence, which overflow into courtrooms, state agencies and other sites. In this sense, domestic violence is an Eigenvalue (Heinz von Foerster), a referential correlate of this complex network of operations.

This paper, which is based on field observations made in Santiago, Chile, describes a section of this network: the section that goes from the moment a report is made to the moment it enters a courtroom transformed into a case of domestic violence. It is stated that three problems of reference (Niklas Luhmann) give meaning to the diverse operations that are involved in this network: a) the attribution of cases of violence to the environment of the system; b) their observation as forms against a medium; c) and the constitution of chains of transformations (Bruno Latour) through which references to the lived experiences of violence are mobilized into the courtroom. Specific mechanisms that contribute to solve these problems are presented and analyzed.

Finally, two main consequences are explored. At the same time that the constructed reality of domestic violence becomes inscribed in the lives of victims and their relatives, shaping their experiences and descriptions of the world, it is shaped as a stream of facts that feed state mechanisms of population control.