|
Showing 1 - 4 of
4 matches in All Departments
This book focuses on 'imaginative sociology,' demonstrating the
techniques by which social science may capture the contexts that
human beings construct and inhabit. It argues for the continuing
value of a historical anthropology in which ethnography and culture
remain vital.
Over the years John and Jean Comaroff have broadened the study of
culture and society with their reflections on power and meaning. In
their work on Africa and colonialism they have explored some of the
fundamental questions of social science, delving into the nature of
history and human agency, culture and consciousness, ritual and
representation. How are human differences constructed and
institutionalized, transformed and (sometimes) effaced, empowered
and (sometimes) resisted? How do local cultures articulate with
global forms? How is the power of some people over others built,
sustained, eroded, and negated? How does the social imagination
take shape in novel yet collectively meaningful ways? Addressing
these questions, the essays in this volume-several never before
published-work toward an "imaginative sociology," demonstrating the
techniques by which social science may capture the contexts that
human beings construct and inhabit. In the introduction, the
authors offer their most complete statement to date on the nature
of historical anthropology. Standing apart from the traditional
disciplines of social history and modernist social science, their
work is dedicated to discovering how human worlds are made and
signified, forgotten and remade.
As the 21st century began, Algeria, Morocco, and North Sudan
launched some much-publicised "reconciliation" policies, or, in the
case of North Sudan, "pacification" policies. Algeria, following
its Clemency policy (1995) and Civil Concord Law (1999), held a
referendum in 2005 and subsequently implemented the measures of its
Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation. This charter is
Algeria's latest policy aimed at settling the accounts of a
murderous decade (1990s) between the state and armed Islamic
groups. In Morocco, an arbitration committee was set up in 1999,
followed by the Equity and Reconciliation Commission in 2004, to
turn the page on the "Years of Lead"-a period during the rule of
King Hassan II during which state crimes such as torture,
imprisonment, and murder were committed. Finally, in Sudan (North
Sudan since 2011), peace negotiations were held in 1989 and a peace
process has been ongoing since 2005, with an aim to resolve violent
conflicts and war crimes that are shaking Darfur and North
Kordofan. At the centre of all these reconciliation and
pacification mechanisms lies a practice that has been scarcely
studied: (monetary) compensation for the crimes committed. Shedding
light on this under-studied topic from the North African field,
this volume investigates: What meanings can compensation have when
it is aimed at repairing crimes? Is it necessary, sufficient, or
admissible? How can it be implemented and accepted by the victims
themselves and by society? These questions about compensation lead
the reader through discussions on the nature of crime, punishment,
reparation, reconciliation, and the way these concepts were and are
now understood in these three North African countries.
This collection highlights the work of the Royal Anthropological
Institute’s Urgent Anthropology Fellowships fund, which supports
research into communities whose culture and social life are under
immediate threat. Created by George Appell in response to the
distress he experienced working with a traumatized community of
swidden cultivators in Borneo, who were struggling to survive after
relocation in what Appell describes as a ‘cultural concentration
camp’, the fund was established to identify ways of supporting
and strengthening such communities through ethnographic work. Since
1995, Urgent Anthropology Fellows have worked with many displaced
communities, whether found in refugee camps, resettled in kindred
communities across national borders or in environments hostile to
their traditional way of life; or whether suffering from the
aftermath of civil war or the intrusion of foreigners in search of
minerals. Despite the diversity of circumstances in these case
studies, this book shows some of the common strategies that emerge
in helping displaced communities regain some control over their own
destinies. These include membership of social networks, access to
natural resources, land ownership and self sufficiency, autonomy in
local judicial procedures and economic activities as well as the
celebration of traditional rituals, all of which lessen the
potential powerlessness of displaced communities. Any
anthropologist or NGO worker, and indeed anyone who works with, or
cares about, vulnerable communities and the rights of indigenous
peoples, will gain much from the accumulation of experience and
insights offered herein.
|
|