Armed conflict and space: exploring urban–rural patterns of violence

Where does large-scale violence take place? Large-scale collective violence is a multifaceted phenomenon and includes armed conflicts between government and organized opposition groups, violence between communal groups, and one-sided violence against civilians perpetrated by agents of the state or other armed actors. These forms of violence are usually studied as separate occurrences. In this chapter we are interested in the spatial dimension of these conflicts, exploring whether different forms of violence are predominantly rural or urban phenomena.