Transcript Culture in Armed Conflicts

Culture in Armed Conflicts
Final Session
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Your prioritisation
1. Themes
2. Case studies
3. Course papers
4. General discussion
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5. Other
1. Course paper requirements, when not
writing about case studies
2. Comparing themes
3. Finding other references/resources
4. Evaluation
5. What are Jan & Jesper doing next?
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Introduction
1.
2.
3.
4.
”Culture in Armed Conflict”?
The 4 Case Studies – themes
Other analytical points/ideas
General discussion
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1. Introduction
”Culture in Armed Conflicts”?
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Armed Conflicts
Wars – dirty, small, new…
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Picture removed: Aerial photo of
trenches in World War I
A classic image of war; infrastructure
carved into the landscape etc.
Link to photo:
– http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Tre
nch-warfare
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Picture removed: Soldiers in
trenches in World War I
Link to photo:
– http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Tre
nch-warfare
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Picture removed: Aerial of
Vietnamese jungle
New kinds of battlefields; changing faces of
what a war is
Link to photo:
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Removed picture: American soldiers
in the Vietnam War
New battlefields
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Removed picture: German soldiers
march in World War II
Classic image of a soldier; recognizable;
ordered, part of regiment etc.
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Removed picture: child soldiers in
West Africa
New kinds of soldiers; no uniform; ”too
young”; not in ordered regiments etc.
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Armed Conflict
War  armed conflict
Conflict  armed conflict
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Armed Conflict
”To us, all war … is long-term struggle
organised for political ends, commonly but
not always using violence. Neither the
means nor the ends can be understood
without reference to a specific social
context” (Richards 2005:4)
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Crisis and Chronicity
Crisis in context  crisis as context
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Armed Conflict
”… many wars are long periods of (uneasy)
peace interrupted by occasional eruptions of
violence … war is often a state of mind
shared among participants” (Richards
2005:5)
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Culture…
The Pandora’s Box of
Anthropology…
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Culture…
"Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad,
ethnographic sense, is that complex whole
which includes knowledge, belief, art,
morals, law, custom, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society"
(Tylor 1958 [1871]:1)
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Culture…
”…those abilities, notions and forms of
behaviour persons have acquired as
members of society”
(Hylland-Eriksen 1995:3)
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Culture…
”I find myself frequently troubled by the word
culture as a noun but centrally attached to
the adjectival form of the word, that is,
cultural”
(Appadurai 1996:12)
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Chauveau & Richards (2008)
”Culture by itself causes nothing. Ethnic
identity claims (and other cultural
epiphenomena) are always products of
organization, and competition among
organization”
(2008:546)
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”Anthropology has never had a distinct
subject matter, and because it doesn't have a
real method, there's a great deal of anxiety
over what it is”
Clifford Geertz
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”Anthropology is philosophy with people in”
Tim Ingold
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”Culture in Armed Conflicts”?
Actors
Delimited field of inquiry
Contextualisation
Oriented towards the present
Understand, not explain or predict
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Shadows of War, Nordstrom
”… ethnography is an excellent way to
study the invisibilities of power –
invisibility that is in part constructed
by convincing people not to study the
shadows … Ethnography gives
substance and site to all human
endeavour, merely by caring about the
day to day of human existence”
(2004:15)
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A Soldier Story, Ivana Macek
Civilian
Soldier
Deserter
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”Cake or Death…?”
Deconstructing conventional views
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Removed video clip
Anthropologists/academics not the only ones to
deconstruct established perceptions
Eddie Izzard on war, mass murder, colonialism,
morality; funny, but achieves the same analytical
distance to well-known historical figures and
events – unsettles our conventional understandings
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAOLOGGftTY
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2. The 4 Case Studies
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Côte d’Ivoire
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Côte d’Ivoire
Political rhetoric
Intergenerational relations
Youth revolution?
Life stories in the context of war
Deconstructing political rhetoric (e.g.
North/South divide)
Politics of belonging – ”who is Ivorian?”
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Your reflections
Youth (in Africa; youth revolutions; youth
politics)
Ethnicity/identity politics (in relation to
nationalism; citizenship; democratization)
Xenophobic political rhetoric (in relation to
immigration)
Intergenerational tensions
Relations between elites and the general
population
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Your reflections
Colonial history
the Global world order (globalisation)
North/South distinctions in Côte d’Ivoire
The characteristics of an armed conflict/war
Land
(Lack of) Media coverage
Distinction between war/crisis in the Ivorian case
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Colombia
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Your reflections
Oscar’s terminology
–
–
–
–
Faustian bargain
the phantasmagoria of cocaine cultivation
political economy of cocaine production
Marxian analysis, employing notions of
primitive accumulation, revolution, capitalism,
the exploitation of workers etc.
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Your reflections
Asking questions
Comparative discussion
Holistic view of armed conflict
Understand rather than explain
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Cambodia
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Your reflections
”Genocide”
– juridical term
– The ”ethnicity” problem
French colonialism
Ritual outlets for frustration etc.
Morality, politeness
’culturalist’ versus political-historical
perspective
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Jan’s comments
I will agree with a critical comment that the early
and colonial history perhaps took too much of our
time, but at least it seems that my point about the
importance of history got through
I really object to the view that Khmer Rouge
violence was either caused or motivated by
specificities of Khmer culture – and this objection
is shared by the majority of the Cambodian
population, whether they have later come to be
classified as victims or perpetrators
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War on Terror
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War on Terror
”Terrorism” after 9/11
Media representations (”us”, not ”them” as
audience/receivers)
Oil
”fight terror with terror?”
Strict dichotomies
”Clash of Civilizations” (Huntington)
Neoconservatives (triad?)
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Iraq
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Iraq
Collapsed/failed/… state (who is the agent?)
Orientalism; ”Arab culture” etc.
Involvement of
anthropology/anthropologists
– Mercenary anthropology?
– ”win the hearts and minds of the natives”?
Tribes, clans, family structures
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Discussion: How do we
write about all this?!
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More analytical ideas
Think about networks/connections
– Utas’ molecule model
– Vigh’s rhizomatic networks
– Patron-client relationships
Politicised belonging
– Who is who?
– Löfving’s movements
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Resources and requirements
Additional resources/literature
– E-resources on DISA
– E.g. JSTOR
Writing on other cases?
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What next?
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Evaluations!
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