[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Developing an Understanding of Violence using the DSRP Theory as a Framework

## Details

**Authors** MacGill

**Year** 2016

**Publisher** Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of the ISSS, Boulder CO

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Systems Science

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

[Read it](https://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings60th/article/view/2854)

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

A conference paper by Victor MacGill analyzing violence through DSRP, defining it structurally as the invasion of a boundary, the disruption of a flow across one, or the willful ignoring of either.

### What they found (results)

Proposes that violence is the invasion or disruption of a boundary, latent in all complex systems and fractal from individual to global scale.

## Commentary

### In short

Applies DSRP as the analytic frame to redefine violence in systems terms, deriving the definition from boundary-setting in distinctions and tracing systems, relationships and perspectives through othering and Galtung's violence typology.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R, P

## Questions it bears on

- Referred to by: [A Systems-Based Analysis of Human Violence](https://dsrpevidence.org/element/435)

**Added** 2026-08-21

**How to cite this** MacGill (2016). Developing an Understanding of Violence using the DSRP Theory as a Framework. Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of the ISSS, Boulder CO.