Practice of War

The late Aparna Rao spent many years doing ethnographic fieldwork among numerous rural and semi-rural communities in Afghanistan, Kashmir and in western India, and published several books and papers based on her research. Michael Bollig is a Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. He has conducted fieldwork in northern Kenya and northern Namibia with pastoral communities. He is interested in the dynamics of human-environment relations and socio-economic change in rural communities. Conflict management and the socio-cultural processes connected to violence are a second focus of his work. He recently published Risk Management in a Hazardous Environment. A Comparative Study of Two Pastoral Societies (Springer/New York 2005). He is the chairperson of the interdisciplinary ACACIA programme (Arid Climate, Adaptation and Cultural Innovation in Africa). Monika Bock is a Social Anthropologist, affiliated with the University of Cologne. She has conducted fieldwork among a matrilineal community in North-Eastern India. She is interested in kinship & gender studies, cognitive anthropology, and the medializaon of war and violence. Together with Aparna Rao she published Culture Creation and Procreation: Concepts of Kinship in South Asian Practice (Berghahn Books 2000).

• List of Figures and TablesList of ContributorsPrefaceIntroduction: The Practice of WarElisabeth ColsonPART I: CHANGING QUALITIES OF VIOLENCE: CASE STUDIES FROM AFRICAChapter 1. ‘We Turned our Enemies into Baboons’: Warfare, Ritual and Pastoral Identity among the Pokot of Northern KenyaMichael Bollig and Matthias ÖsterleChapter 2. Culture Slipping Away: Violence, Social Tension and Personal Drama in Suri Society, Southern EthiopiaJon AbbinkChapter 3. Catholics and Cannibals: Terror and Healing in Tooro, Western UgandaHeike BehrendPART II: MEMORY, TRAUMA AND REDEMPTIONChapter 4. Coming Through Slaughter: The Herero of Namibia, 1904–1940Jan-Bart GewaldChapter 5. Trauma, Therapy and Responsibility: Psychology and War in Contemporary IsraelEdna Lomsky-Feder and Eyal Ben-AriChapter 6. ‘I Shall be Waiting for You at the Door of Paradise’: The Pakistani Martyrs of the Lashkar-e Taiba (Army of the Pure)Mariam Abou ZahabPART III: ORGANIZING, ENCOURAGING AND DISSUADING: THE USES OF KINSHIP, GENDER AND RELIGIONChapter 7. Is War Gendered? Issues in Representing Women and the Second World WarElaine MartinChapter 8. Judging by Aesthetics: ‘Due Care’ in the Management of ‘Collaboration’ in the First Palestinian IntifadaIris Jean-KleinChapter 9. Islamist Militancy in Kashmir: The Case of the Lashkar-e TaibaYoginder SikandPART IV: THE INSCRIPTION OF WAR IN MEDIATED WORLDSChapter 10. In the Combat ZoneMarilyn B. YoungChapter 11. ‘Virtual’ Discourse and the Creation and Disruption of Social Networks: Observations on the War in Kashmir in CyberspaceAparna Rao, Monika Böck, Katharina Schneider and Michael SchneggChapter 12. Martyrs, Victims, Friends and Foes: Internet Representations by Palestinian IslamistsHenner KirchnerChapter 13. Mapping a Conflict in Cyberspace: Chiapas on the WWWJulia Pauli and Michael SchneggPART V: PEACE BUILDING AT THE CROSSROADS: APPROPRIATIONS OF WAR, AMBIVELENCES OF INTERESTChapter 14. Violence and Peace ProcessesJohn DarbyIndex

"[A]n admirable example of how social anthropologists may contribute to understandings of conflicts and armed violence as complex and articulated social processes" · Ethos