Landscapes of Violence: Volume 1, Issue 1
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2010-15-10
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From the Editor: An Introduction to Landscapes of Violence
(2010-10-01) Perez, Ventura R.
Demon Landscapes, Sacrificial Architecture and Monumental Death
(2010-10-01) Whitehead, Neil
This paper examines some of the ways in which the memory and practice of violence becomes embedded in landscapes such that the landscape itself becomes a vehicle for meaning through time - landscapes materialize meaning and thereby give particular stability and significance to the kinds of cultural significance that landscapes evoke
Beaten Down and Worked to the Bone: Bioarchaeological Investigations of Women and Violence in the Ancient Southwest
(2010-10-01) Martin, Debra L; Harrod, Ryan P; Fields, Misty
The study of violence is generally androcentric in its focus, with emphasis on men and their pursuit of resources, power, and prestige. Neglected is the role and motivations of the women in violence, and this is especially true in raiding. With the analysis of over sixty Ancestral Pueblo human remains from La Plata Valley as a case study, this study is focused on the relationship between the women in the culture and interpersonal violence. The basic questions that this project addresses are: (1) Does the pattern of trauma vary and are there certain individuals who are at more risk within the culture (i.e., appear “beaten down”)? (2) Are there certain portions of the culture that appear to have worked harder during their lifetime (i.e., been “worked to the bone”)? (3) What can the differential patterning of pathology, trauma, and early death across the population reveal regarding the roles of men and women in raiding societies? In order to answer these questions several categories were evaluated according to age and sex. These factors include non-lethal injury (especially trauma to the head), mortuary status (e.g., burial position and grave goods), and muscular stress markers or enthesopathies. The results of this analysis present a picture of inequality within the La Plata population with obvious morbidity differences between women of varying status. The results of this study found that were two groups of women living in La Plata. The local women who lacked cranial trauma, received a culturally appropriate burial, and showed little evidence of muscular stress markers. The women that may have been obtained from raids had cranial trauma, were thrown haphazardly into abandoned pits, and possessed clear signs of having worked hard throughout their lives. This study looked closely at the relationship between women, work, and violence, and results suggest that the local women living at La Plata may have been attempting to reduce their own morbidity risks by both sanctioning and supporting the subordination of captive women obtained in raiding activities. The captive women (having been beaten and worked to the bone) benefited both the local men and women at La Plata. This study shows the complex ways that structural violence works, the potential for gender based functional differences in violent behaviors, and the ways that violence becomes culturally normalized.
Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation: A Social-Psychological Perspective on Ending Violent Conflict Between Identity Groups
(2010-10-01) Kelman, Herbert C
My work over more than three decades has focused on the development and application of interactive problem solving: an unofficial, scholar-practitioner approach to the resolution of protracted, deep-rooted, and often violent conflicts between identity groups, which is derived from the pioneering work of John Burton and anchored in social-psychological principles. My primary focus over the years has been on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but my students and associates have also applied the approach in a number of other arenas of ethnonational conflict, including Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and South Africa. A starting point of this work has been the assumption that the nonviolent termination of such conflicts must go beyond conflict settlement centered on interest-based bargaining, and aim for conflict resolution centered on joint development of solutions that address the needs and allay the fears of both parties. We have viewed interactive problem solving as a form of conflict resolution that is conducive to ultimate reconciliation. Increasingly, however, we have come to see reconciliation as a distinct process of peacemaking, which must accompany conflict resolution in deep-rooted conflicts between identity groups. Whereas conflict resolution refers to the process of shaping a mutually satisfactory and hence durable agreement between the two societies, reconciliation refers to the process whereby they learn to live together in the post-conflict environment. Following this logic, the paper conceptualizes conflict settlement, conflict resolution, and reconciliation as three qualitatively distinct processes, operating at the level of interests, relationships, and identity respectively. These three processes may be related sequentially, but they may also operate independently and simultaneously. The paper addresses the special challenge of reconciliation, which requires some changes in each party’s identity, without threatening the core of its identity; and concludes with a brief discussion of the conditions conducive to reconciliation.
Online Deliberative Discourse and Conflict Resolution
(2010-10-01) Ellis, Donald G.
States and conflicting groups must get together at some point and engage in communication in an effort at conflict resolution. This paper examines the relationship between the Internet, deliberative discourse, and ethnopolitical groups in conflict. It focuses briefly on the public sphere but with specific reference to its role in democratic discourse in the online environment. It makes the argument that the online environment is uniquely capable of both constructing new and novel public spheres while at the same time establishing conditions of communicative contact conducive to conflict resolution. The Internet public sphere is particularly strong with respect to fostering new points of contact that are free from the constraints of society systems. Deliberative democratic theory can be adapted to the context of ethnopolitical conflict and Internet technology to open up new communicative spaces for problem solving. These new spaces can create a more diverse conversational environment, encourage a task orientation, and improve democratic discussion by creating argument-based conversations that are not as polarizing. Online communities are posed as contexts for reorganizing discourse in such a way as to increase the mutual obligation and interdependence that is central to the intersection of democracy and conflict resolution.