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Supporting Analyses Presented at the Interacademy Workshop on December 7, 2001 - The State of the Art of Understanding Violence
Pages 31-39

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From page 33...
... Perhaps no sociopolitical movement, even those pursuing the most admirable goals, has ever escaped what French philosopher Michel Foucault called the "paradox of hegemonistic consequences of liberation movements." In fact, among modern political movements, those aimed at various sorts of self-determination are the most likely to use violent struggle to achieve their goals. The struggle not only takes on a prolonged character, but also develops its own set of subjects and creates its own mitigating arguments.
From page 34...
... It employs intellects reaching beyond the scope of ordinary. Violence makes people forget who they are."3 Involving large numbers of people, both perpetrators and victims, violence gains its own momentum where various arguments made by its participants and coparticipants (including scientists)
From page 35...
... American anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon's classic ethnographic documentary film and accompanying description of the Yanomamo tribe was based on this approach. His work sparked fierce debates among specialists, especially Chagnon's conclusion that reproductive factors are the key to understanding tribal violence, since males who killed tended to have more wives and children than the non-killing men.5 Marshall Sahlins conclusively proved that this theory failed to describe the link between reproduction and violence and failed to offer any insights for understanding specific forms of violence.6 Modern science has rejected any attempts to explain human violence in terms of biological parameters.
From page 36...
... One fruitful outcome of these debates has been a number of ethnographic studies of peaceful communities as another form of natural existence.l° Collective violence and especially wars were studied extensively within the context of the early stages of formation of state and central political systems. In general, it is accepted that violence served almost as a midwife for early states, even in relatively recent history.
From page 37...
... One of these types involves the world of human politics and wars created and supported through ritualistic acts requiring individuals and societies to display violence.l3 Overall, theoretical models of violence are very underdeveloped, which in turn results in much fruitless debate over the theory of war and conflicts. As Simon Harrison points out in the Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, "an adequate theory of war has to await the emergence of a theoretical understanding of the more global problem of violence, which is so far not well developed in anthropological science.''l4 I believe that in order to understand and explain violence we don't need a metatheory instead this goal will be better achieved by conducting ethnographic studies of different cultural (social)
From page 38...
... However, sporadic violence and separate violent acts can still take place.~5 The next stage of collective violence analysis is to determine whether stopping verbal violence can eliminate or reduce political violence and prevent direct (physical) acts.
From page 39...
... Scientific conferences devoted to the prominent leaders of the liberation movement aired not only mythical versions of the past (replacing the heavily censored version of the Soviet era) , but direct appeals to complete the mission of liberation.l6 It is important to determine at what point all these words were transformed into bullets, that is, direct violence, although the link between verbal and direct violence is rather peculiar.


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