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Anthropological Quarterly 78.1 (2005) 289-292



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Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois (eds.), Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2004, 496 pp.

Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology brings together 62 essays by 50 authors and a lengthy introduction by the editors, Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois. Seasoned ethnographers and leading researchers in the fields of political and medical anthropology, the editors share a commitment to political advocacy and teaching. Their brand of anthropology is driven by a passion for becoming thickly and tensely involved in and lending an ethnographic voice to pressing social problems. The volume is a fine example of this commitment to ethnography. It showcases the great relevance of ethnographic research and writing—compared to other approaches—for thinking about violence and suffering. This collection will be an invaluable resource for teachers and learners, a comprehensive anthology for introductory classes, or a companion volume for more in-depth seminars.

The introduction, like the volume itself, is divided into 11 sections that deal with different types of violence: genocide, complicity and blame, communal and state-sponsored violence, revolution and social upheaval, crime, torture, gendered violence, colonialism and conquest. This volume is difficult reading—not so much dense or turgid but wounding, troubling, for the reader will find some of the best attempts of the last century to translate the pain, uncertainty, [End Page 289] and absurdity of violence into an at least somewhat understandable format. We find that it is our very lack of clarity about violence that empowers us to try to understand its many faces. "It," the editors say of violence, is ambulant and multivalent, never fully within our grasp.

Yet the editors do succeed in developing synthetic claims about what violence is, how it works, and what we can do about it. First, like produces like, violence begets violence. Violence intensifies, sometimes exponentially, sometimes gradually. Structural violence, such as extreme poverty, can translate into more intimate or domestic forms of violence. Political violence fuels and feeds on symbolic violence whereby collective senses of blame, victimization, and marginalization are embodied and reproduced in sign systems. Second, what is named violence is a matter of perspective, depending on historical conventions, consolidations of knowledge and power, cultural representations, and the media. Particular acts of violence can alternatively be perceived as depraved, glorious, sensible, or insane. Third, the most compelling argument of the volume, violence is a social process. One perspective that is rejected from the beginning is a commonsense, reductive view of violence as socio- or psychobiological. Whether or not violence is "hard-wired," genetic or hormonal is neither as interesting nor as urgent, the editors write, as the "very human face of violence" (3). Readers will find that it is this dimension that gives violence its meaning and force. Understanding why people kill and do violence involves understanding social worlds as political and historical products.

Most of the chapters are written by cultural anthropologists, or at least are ethnographically oriented. Besides the editors, we read Michael Taussig, Veena Das, Paul Farmer, among others. Yet the ethnographic voice does not stand alone, and a short review cannot do justice to the range of genres, methodologies, and viewpoints found therein. One need only peruse the table of contents to get a sense of the variety. Journalistic pieces, such as the haunting selection from Philip Gourevitch's We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, which describes Rwanda genocide experiences, are set alongside fiction, such as the excerpt from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness that opens the volume or some George Orwell. There is a selection on "The Gray Zone" from Primo Levi's masterpiece, The Drowned and the Saved, theoretical pieces by Agamben, Fanon, Bourdieu and Scarry, and even a couple of cartoon selections from the famous art-text by Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor's Tale.

The editors end the introduction by arguing forcefully that ethnographers and other researchers have a responsibility to become "witnesses" to violence. [End Page 290]

Anthropological witnessing obviously positions the anthropologist inside...

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