The Practice of War: Production, Reproduction and Communication of Armed Violence

Front Cover
Aparna Rao, Michael Bollig, Monika Böck
Berghahn Books, Mar 1, 2008 - Social Science - 366 pages

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

Introduction
1
case studies from africa
21
Ch 1We turned our enemies into baboons
23
Ch 2Culture slipping away
53
Ch 3Catholics and cannibals
73
Part IIMemory trauma and redemption
87
Ch 4Coming through slaughter
89
Ch 5Trauma therapy and responsibility
111
Ch 8Judging by aesthetics
175
Ch 9Islamist militancy in Kashmir
215
Part IVThe inscription of war in mediated worlds
239
Ch 10In the combat zone
241
Ch 11Virtual discourse and the creation and disruption of social networks
253
Ch 12Martyrs victims friends and foes
285
Ch 13Maping a conflict in cyberspace
305
Part VPeace building at the crossroads
323

Ch 6I shall be waiting for you at the door of paradise
133
Part IIIOrganizing encouraging and dissuading
159
Ch 7Is war gendered?
161
Ch 14Violence and peace processes
325
Index
341
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About the author (2008)

Michael Bollig is a Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. He has conducted fieldwork in northern Kenya and northern Namibia with pastoral communities. He recently published Risk Management in a Hazardous Environment. A Comparative Study of Two Pastoral Societies (Springer/New York 2005). Michael Bollig is the speaker of the interdisciplinary research group Resilience, Collapse and Reorganisation in Social-Ecological Systems of Eastern and Southern African Savannahs.

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