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Introduction to Social Anthropology SOC1016b

Lecture 9

Politics, violence, feud and the maintenance of order

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Political anthropology

• Concepts:– Aggression– Violence– War, raid, feud– Terror

• Key issues:– cultural interpretation of behaviour - what is labelled violence?– is such behaviour assessed by the intention or the

consequence?– what are the social mechanisms by violence is organised?

• Can people live without government?• How are disputes settled?

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Ethnography of the Yanomamo.

• Yanomamo were studied by Napoleon Chagnon, and also Lizot and Donner.

• Known as the Fierce People, which is title of Chagnon’s book.

• described as aggressive, assertive, short tempered, and quick to violence

• Live on Venezuela/ Brazil border. Head waters of the Orinoco river.

• Very hot steamy dense tropical rainforest cut by rivers.• Remote and not ‘pacified’ i.e. policed directly by the

state. This was Chagnon’s reason for studying them.• http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2548114635643820643

&ei=jiIASsi-LcTC-AbAiqinAQ&q=Yanomamo&hl=en&emb=1

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Yanomami inter group relations

• Horticultural society, bananas, plantain gardens. Some hunting by game animals few and scarce.

• Shabono - circular village hut.• Central agnatic core - group of brothers and patrilineal

cousins and allies.• Typically 40-100 people.• Relationships to other groups are fraught with danger;

four ways to relate to other groups - all somewhat similar.– Trade– Feasting– Exchange of women. – War

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Shabono

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http://www.throckmorton-nyc.com/images/pages/E36616.htm

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http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/macionis9/medialib/intros/chapter02/0202.html

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Rules of violence

• Chest pounding,

• Club fights

• Raiding

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Why do the Yanomamo go to war with one another?

• They say - shortage of women.• Harris comment;

– short of women because of systematic female infanticide practised by the women.

• He presents a materialist explanation; – short of protein, therefore prefer male hunters as

children– newly settled hunters and gatherers without the

overall social mechanisms for dispute settlement, such a chiefdoms or elaborated kinship organisations.

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violence is culturally and socially constructed

• Yanomomo society is violent– it is not chaos or anarchy– violence is conducted according to rules

• There is no conquest or subjugation by the Yanomamo– because there is no mechanism for rule or for

economic exploitation (only reproductive exploitation) – it requires states to organise war - carry though

violence to achieve political ends, and to organise social subjugation.

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Is it possible to live without government

• Order – settlement of disputes without violence

• Power - “the ability, by what ever means, to enforces one’s own will on other’s behaviour”

• Coercion v Legitimacy.

• Weber’s three types of authority.

• Traditional, Charismatic, legal-rational

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The Nuer studied by E.E.Evans-Pritchard

• Southern Sudan

• Transhumant cattle herders, move with Nile floods. Grow some maize and millet.

• Reputation as – aggressive and quick to violence– independent and egalitarian

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0VBnrIkAtA

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http://www.artnet.com/artwork_images_1050_107975_Hugo-Adolf-Bernatzik.jpghttp://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/nuer/slides/full/046.jpg

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Evans-Pritchard describes them as poets of cattle.

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http://www.anthrophoto.com/cgi-bin/ImageFolio31//imageFolio.cgi?direct=Humans/Africa/Nuer

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Ordered anarchy

• Patrilineal kinship.• Segmentary lineage

system

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/descent/unilineal/segments.html

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http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/nuer/slides/full/085.jpg

• Feud• Complementary

opposition.

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http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/nuer/slides/

• Dominant clan.• Leopard-skin chiefs/ priests of the earth

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http://www.anthrophoto.com/cgi-bin/ImageFolio31//imageFolio.cgi?direct=Humans/Africa/Nuer

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Settlement of feud

• The symbolism of ‘blood’ in ‘blood feud’• The ‘order’ is in the system• Social structure sets up motivations and

mechanisms for settling disputes• Traditional and charismatic authority of the

leopard skin chief helps settle those conflicts participants want to avoid.

• Sanctuary. Compensation in cattle• Excellent re-study by Sharon Hutchinson Nuer

Dilemmas

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Conclusion

• Can individual emotional predispositions explain group behaviour?

• It takes civilisation to organise killing on a mass scale.