A number of discussions about violence have appeared within anthropology over the years. Taussig's discussion of the colonialists' rubber plantations in Colombia is a good example of the way the issue of violence has been made a central theme. Other writers have attempted to situate the topic within the field of the sociology of violence. Yet others have tried to develop a Marxist dialectic, by focusing on the issue of violence in class conflict.

I see violence, and its implementation, as an extreme manifestation of the unequal relationship between the holders of power and the powerless. This position swings around the definition of violence. Riches has said that the commonsensical meaning of violence is ‘the intentional rendering of physical hurt on another human being’. He has also said that violence is used when the power-holders in any given relationship are ‘confident that their actions command a legitimacy [and] they are able … to satisfy their ambitions through deploying physical harm’. That is, violence is used to forestall challenges to the control of the powerful by the powerless, and this violence is legitimated by employing the rationale that it maintains social equanimity. Violence is seen by the victim, on the other hand, as an unambiguous use of illegitimate force.

Therefore, the definition Riches settles on is that violence is: