Violence Ethnographic Encounters [Hardcover]

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.

This is an essential book in Berg's important 'Encounters: Experience and Anthropological Knowledge' series, which addresses crucial yet little discussed concerns in ethnographic experience... The series editor instructed the authors to write atheoretically, to provide personal accounts. Each essay superbly accomplishes this directive, which makes these readings so penetrating... Compelling, riveting reading that will prove important to researchers... Essential. Choice

Acknowledgements * Notes on Contributors * Preface, John Borneman * Introduction, Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi * 1 Written on My Body, Billie Jean Isbell * 2 Bandh in Ahmedabad, Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi * 3 Fieldwork and Fear in Iraqi Kurdistan, Diane E. King * 4 The Sense of War Songs, Bilinda Straight * 5 Sleeping with One Eye Open, Kristen Drybread * 6 Hell of a Party, Brenda Maiale * 7 Arriving in Jewish Buenos Aires, Natasha Zaretsky * 8 Dreamwork and Punishment in Lebanon, John Borneman * 9 Unwelcomed and Unwelcoming Encounter, Annarose Pandey * 10 Guide to Further Reading, Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi * Bibliography * Index

Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi is Assistant Profel£Q