Data and evidence on violence are a few of the many core elements necessary for prevention. They inform decision-making by policy makers, provide corroboration for claims-makers, and exist as a means of empowerment for advocates and activists. Homicide is a global burden that is unequal in risk and distribution. However, evidence required for prevention is currently fragmented across different systems of knowledge production, creating challenges in the form of missing data.
Viewed through the sociology of quantification and knowledge production, VISION Co-Investigator Dr Elizabeth Cook, provides methodological and ethical reflections on conducting a global systematic review of sex/gender-disaggregated homicide data. In doing so, she highlights epistemological and ontological differences that risk becoming obscured in global, comparative work on violence.
The systematic review she draws on in her critique, Conflating the map with the territory: Challenges for evidence syntheses on homicide in a global context, consisted of a four-step search strategy: electronic database searches, hand searches of statistics, ministry, and police websites, citation tracking, and email survey of statistics offices.
Studies were included if they reported prevalence data on homicide which was sex/gender-disaggregated (by victim/offender relationship, sexual aspects, and/or motivation) by both women and men. From 194 WHO-recognised countries, data were available for just under half (n = 84). However, there were pronounced differences between countries and regions regarding the availability of data.
Evidence syntheses are just one way of trying to make sense of this vast body of evidence in a transnational context. Viewed through sociological work on quantification and epistemic communities, Lizzie has provided reflections on a global systematic review to establish the prevalence of sex/gender disaggregated homicide by country, region, and globally.
Recommendation
To avoid conflating the ‘map with the territory’ as others argue, moving towards critical knowledge synthesis as a way to build in contestation and to decenter assumptions of objectivity in the global systematic review of sex/gender-disaggregated homicide data.
To download: Conflating the map with the territory: Challenges for evidence syntheses on homicide in a global context
To cite: Cook, E. A. (2025). Conflating the map with the territory: Challenges for evidence syntheses on homicide in a global context. International Sociology, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809251336694
For further information, please contact Lizzie at elizabeth.cook@citystgeorges.ac.uk
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