Violence: (School of American Research Advanced Seminar)

Can we understand violence not as evidence of cultural rupture but as a form of cultural expression itself? Nine prominent ethnographers engage this question across geographies as diverse at their theoretical positions, drawing onfieldwork in Indonesia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South America, Sri Lanka, Spain, and the United States. This research makes clear that within specific cultures, violent acts are expressions of cultural codes imbued with great meaning for both perpetrator and victim. 'Unless the perpetrator's view is part of our own understanding,' editor Neil Whitehead observes, 'how to address the sources of violence will escape us.' Covering wide ranging regimes of violence, these essays examine various aspects of state violence, legitimate and illegitimate forms of violence, the impact of anticipatory violence on daily life, and its effects long after theevents themselves have passed. In the marginal spaces of global ethnoscapes, violence becomes a form of cultural affirmation and expression in the face of a loss of 'tradition' and dislocations of ethnic communities. North America: School for Advanced Research Press

Table of Contents:
Introduction: cultures, conflicts & the poetics of violent practice by Neil L. Whitehead - Violence, culture & the Indonesian public sphere: some ethnographic tasks by Kenneth M. George - On the poetics of violence by Neil L. Whitehead - Deadly images: king sacrifice, President Habyarimana, & pregenocidal Rwandan popular literature by Christopher C. Taylor - Interpreting violence: reflections on West African wars by Stephen Ellis - Before the law: the narrative of the unconscious in Basque political violence by Begona Aretxaga - The poetics of genocidal practice: violence under the Khmer Rouge by Alex Hinton - Disco-very: anthropology, nationalist thought, Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, & an uncertain descent into the ordinary by Pradeep Jeganathan - True crime by Mark Seltzer - The tomorrow of violence by Carolyn Nordstrom - Confessional performances: perpetrators' testimonies to the South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission by Leigh A. Payne

Review :
The book is a stimulating attempt to understand violence in different places, contexts and times. The breadth of explanations on offer is striking, and it deserves reading. It also provides researchers with a useful source of information they cannot afford to ignore. The volume has much to offer not only to anthropology, but also to other related disciplines. It counters understandings of violence as aberration and contests media-disseminated and popular perceptions about 'the inherent savagery of the non-western world'. Instead, the reader is offered a more nuanced understanding of conflict as cultural expression. The contributors have successfully returned the victim, the victimizer and the violence to the heart of culture.