Understanding Disputes

Pat Caplan Goldsmiths College,University of London Gino Bedani Professor and Head of Italian, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University College of Swansea

• Contents: P. Caplan, Introduction: Anthropology and the Study of Disputes - S. F. Moore, Imperfect Communications - L. Nader, Civilization and its Negotiations - E. Colson, The Contentiousness of Disputes - C. Johnson, Gentlemanly Values: Contesting Corruption Accusations in the Cities of London and Lagos in the Mid-1950s - M. Silverman, The 'Inhabitants' vs the 'Sovereign': A Historical Ethnography of the Making of the 'Middle Class' in an Irish Corporate Borough, 1840-1 - L. Caplan, The Milieu of Disputation: Managing Quarrels in East Nepal - D. Parkin, Disputing Human Passion: The Negotiation of the Meaning of Love among the Giriama of Kenya - S. Gaetz, 'Youth Development': Conflict and Negotiations in an Urban Irish Youth Club - P. Caplan, 'Law' and 'Custom': Marital Disputes on Northern Mafia Island, Tanzania - A. Southall, Courts of Death Among the Alur of Uganda

'I expect it to be both a popular and useful text for teaching the anthropology of law.' David Brokensha, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology and Environmental Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara'This is a book worht reading, and quite appropriate for undergraduate courses. It gives the flavour of recent ethnography in bite-sized, digestible chunks and illustrates theoretical ideas not only about disputes, but also, as Caplan points out, about more fundamental aspects of social life.'JASO