Our work has generated the following answers to the question of how group processes influence the start, continuation, escalation and de-escalation of violence in public space.
1. Our study of 130 phone camera recorded videos of violent and non-violent interpersonal conflicts in public space showed that, using qualitative analyses, third parties generate situational groups when they create circular formations. Statistical analysis showed that these groups of strangers facilitate the collectivization of de-escalatory action. Our findings emphasize the self-regulatory, defusing capacity of groups of strangers in public space.
2. In another study, we analysed group escalation processes using 42 phone camera recorded violent incidents to code the behaviour of 406 individuals who were part of 59 groups. We used a mathematical model to predict when group members start to fight in a burst in which the larger part of group members start to use violence rapidly after each other. Our analysis shows that collective escalation in bursts of violence happens if, at a critical level of agitation, the proportion of group members who do not engage in violence (because they attempt to de-escalate, or are wounded) is one third or lower. When the proportion of non-fighting group members is higher, only few group members fight, or individuals do so separately.
3. Unpacking the escalation of conflict further, we conducted granular analyses of three phone camera recorded violent incidents, showing that antagonists act upon each other’s bodily and verbal actions to move the conflict toward a violent encounter. Antagonists produce a metaconflict, which revolves around the conditions under which the confrontation will become violent. Methodologically, our contribution shows how bodily actions can be studied using video data.
5. A four-year PhD project showed that, based on extensive field work and interviews with police officers, group processes are crucial to understand their use of force and suspects' resistance. Group processes in police work take the form of officers' collective attempts to gain and maintain control by mutually aligning their bodily actions and by anticipating the bodily actions of suspects.
6. A second four-year PhD project on vigilante groups, based on interviews, field trips to the places where lynchings took place and a large scale survey, also highlighted the importance of the bodily dimension of group processes in the escalation of violence. In what we called vigilante rituals, agitators know how to mobilize and channel emotions that generate a vengeful mood in a group. By spreading rumours, vocalizing accusations, rhythmic chanting and the repetition of slogans, groups attain bodily attunement and focus on the (fabricated) encroachment of the group’s moral imperatives and a desired to punish the offenders.
7. A third four-year PhD project on teams of security guards, grounded on field work in night clubs, bars, and festivals and interviews with guards, showed that they use bodily skills to monitor group processes that enable them to take preventive measures before interpersonal conflicts start to escalate. As in the project on police teams, it appeared that guards’ intervention practices revolve around their knowledge of antagonists' bodily positioning and body movements also in relation to third parties’ positioning and movements.
8. A fourth four-year PhD project on delinquent youth groups showed that interpersonal conflicts in which violence is impending are relatively frequent and important events in these youth’s group life. Violence and conflict shape these youth’s relationships and vice versa, their relationship shape the form of their conflicts and violence. We also found that youth who are more involved in criminal activities, notably the drugs trade, have learnt the bodily know-how of violence.
9. Finally, a fifth four-year PhD project on participants of arranged fights similarly showed the importance of the bodily know-how of violence. These fighters perceive their violence as part of collective masculinity projects in which they learn how to use violence as a form of controlled decontrolling of aggression. Their adherence to a code of honourable fighting provides them with an moral identity as disciplined but tough fighters.
