ABSTRACT

Violence takes many forms. From large-scale acts of terrorism to assaults on single individuals, violence is a defining force in shaping human experience and a central theme in anthropological study. Violence: Ethnographic Encounters presents a set of vivid first-hand accounts of fieldwork experiences of violence. The examples range across Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and illustrate instances of state terror, insurgency, communal violence, war, prison violence, class conflict, security measures, and sexual violence. How do these anthropologists come to know a place through such violent experience? Why do they not leave such scenes? What insights follow from such experience? Violence: Ethnographic Encounters offers readers a broad anthropological study of violence through personal encounters.

chapter |13 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|20 pages

Written on My Body

chapter 2|15 pages

Bandh in Ahmedabad

chapter 4|8 pages

The Sense of War Songs

chapter 5|18 pages

Sleeping with One Eye Open

chapter 6|10 pages

A Hell of a Party

chapter 7|11 pages

Arriving in Jewish Buenos Aires

chapter 10|12 pages

Guide to Further Reading