About the Book

The fact is that war comes in many guises and its effects continue to be felt long after peace is proclaimed. This challenges the anthropologists who write of war as participant observers. Participant observation inevitably deals with the here and now, with the highly specific. It is only over the long view that one can begin to see the commonalities that emerge from the different forms of conflict and can begin to generalize. [From the Introduction] More needs to be understood about the ways of war and its effects. What implications does war have for people, their lived-in communities and larger political systems; how do they cope and adjust in war situations and how do they deal with the changed world that they inhabit once peace is declared? Through a series of essays that move from looking at the nature of violence to the peace processes that follow it, this important book provides some answers to these questions. It also analyzes those new dimensions of social interaction, such as the internet, which now provide a bridge between local concerns and global networks and are fundamentally altering the practices of war.

Contents:

PART I: CHANGING QUALITIES OF VIOLENCE: CASE STUDIES FROM AFRICA

Chapter 1. ‘We Turned our Enemies into Baboons’: Warfare, Ritual and Pastoral Identity among the Pokot of Northern Kenya
Michael Bollig and Matthias Österle

Chapter 2. Culture Slipping Away: Violence, Social Tension and Personal Drama in Suri Society, Southern Ethiopia
Jon Abbink

Chapter 3. Catholics and Cannibals: Terror and Healing in Tooro, Western Uganda
Heike Behrend

PART II: MEMORY, TRAUMA AND REDEMPTION

Chapter 4. Coming Through Slaughter: The Herero of Namibia, 1904–1940
Jan-Bart Gewald

Chapter 5. Trauma, Therapy and Responsibility: Psychology and War in Contemporary Israel
Edna Lomsky-Feder and Eyal Ben-Ari

Chapter 6. ‘I Shall be Waiting for You at the Door of Paradise’: The Pakistani Martyrs of the Lashkar-e Taiba (Army of the Pure)
Mariam Abou Zahab

PART III: ORGANIZING, ENCOURAGING AND DISSUADING: THE USES OF KINSHIP, GENDER AND RELIGION

Chapter 7. Is War Gendered? Issues in Representing Women and the Second World War
Elaine Martin

Chapter 8. Judging by Aesthetics: ‘Due Care’ in the Management of ‘Collaboration’ in the First Palestinian Intifada
Iris Jean-Klein

Chapter 9. Islamist Militancy in Kashmir: The Case of the Lashkar-e Taiba
Yoginder Sikand

PART IV: THE INSCRIPTION OF WAR IN MEDIATED WORLDS

Chapter 10. In the Combat Zone
Marilyn B. Young

Chapter 11. ‘Virtual’ Discourse and the Creation and Disruption of Social Networks: Observations on the War in Kashmir in Cyberspace
Aparna Rao, Monika Böck, Katharina Schneider and Michael Schnegg

Chapter 12. Martyrs, Victims, Friends and Foes: Internet Representations by Palestinian Islamists
Henner Kirchner

Chapter 13. Mapping a Conflict in Cyberspace: Chiapas on the WWW
Julia Pauli and Michael Schnegg

PART V: PEACE BUILDING AT THE CROSSROADS: APPROPRIATIONS OF WAR, AMBIVELENCES OF INTEREST

Chapter 14. Violence and Peace Processes
John Darby