Review: Anthropologies of Violence and Resistance

Reviewed Work(s): Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban Poor Perceptions
from Colombia and Guatemala by Caroline O. N. Moser and Cathy McIlwaine; Violence:
Theory and Ethnography by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern; Shadows of War:
Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century by Carolyn
Nordstrom
Review by: Victoria D. L. Sanford
Source: American Anthropologist, Vol. 108, No. 3 (Sep., 2006), pp. 534-537
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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534 American Anthropologist ? Vol. 108, No. 3 ? September 2006

Anthropologies of Violence and Resistance

Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban Poor
and aged between 17 and 22, and became alcoholics when
Perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala. Caroline O. reached 30" (p. 127) and "community members noted
they
that people reported 15 percent of offenses, particularly
N. Moser and Cathy Mcllwaine. New York: Routledge, 2004.
272 pp. robbery or gang-related crime" (p. 182). Although the au?
thors note that the perceptions are "partial and subjective"
Violence: Theory and Ethnography. Pamela J. Stewart and
(p. 195), they nevertheless present them as cumulative facts
Andrew Strathern. New York: Continuum, 2002. 196 pp.
throughout the book. This reader would have welcomed the
Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International authors' analysis of the shifting perceptions depending on
Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century. Carolyn Nord-the composition of the focus group.
strom. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 293 In Violence: Theory and Ethnography, Pamela Stewart
pp. and Andrew Strathern seek to assess anthropological con?
tributions to understandings of violence by providing an
VICTORIA D. L. SANFORD overview of some anthropological work in a case study for?
Lehman College, City University of New Yorkmat, which leads them to reflect on their own research ex?
periences in Papua New Guinea. They look to Liisa Malkki
Surviving the deprivations of violence and andwar cuts toTaylor's work on the Hutus and Tutsis in
Christopher
the very core of what it means to be human Rwanda and Burundi, and then turn to Allan Feldman's
(Nussbaum
2001:371), and those who survive are forever marked
study of violenceby
in Ireland. Using the contested legitimacy
trauma that can rupture memory and threatenmodel of David
one's veryRiches as a framework for their analysis,
identity (LaCapra 1998:9). In such circumstances,
they focushow
on thedo
narratives of the performers, victims, and
survivors understand violence in the past andwitnesses
present? of violence,
Can noting that "it is in the divergence of
the narratives
they imagine a different or safer world in the future? Whatthat
is the contest for legitimacy takes place"
(p. 35). Although
an anthropology of violence? How do anthropologists write recognizing the complex and nonstatic
about violence and for whom do they write? These three
relationship between the performer, victim, and witness, if
engaging works of anthropology offer many there is a performer
different an? rather than a perpetrator, it seems to
me that in
swer s to each of the preceding questions. Moreover, what
eachstill needs to be tackled is the path to ad-
dressing
volume, the authors interrogate the very practice of impunity
anthro?and structural violence in the contest for
pology. The diversity of thought and experiencelegitimacy
shared and in
monopoly of power. In the case of Ireland,
awkward comparisons
these volumes is largely shaped by the very different ethno? are made between the Irish Repub-
graphic approaches taken by the authors, ratherlican Army
than by (IRA)
theand "British Football Hooligans" (p. 41).
different regions under study. Reading these Although
books in drawing
con?heavily on Allan Feldman's deployment
of Michel
versation with one another, this reader is struck by the Foucault
very in his discourse analysis of the IRA,
Begona
different styles of research and writing, on the one Arextaga's
hand, work on Ireland (1997) is completely
overlooked, as is Feldman's spatialized Foucaultian analy?
and the resonance and relevance of the ethnographically
driven anthropological project throughout each work,
sis of power on 1991:8). Stewart and Strathern are at
(Feldman
the other hand. their strongest when analyzing the relationship between ex?
In Encounters with Violence in Latin America, Caroline
change and violence in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
Moser and Cathy Mcllwaine focus on the perspectives(p.of71) and especially when writing about the "raskol" phe-
the urban poor in 18 rural and urban communities innomena of highway robbery, the violence of electoral pol?
Guatemala and Colombia to both document the experi? itics, and state violence (p. 73). Indeed, they suggest the
need for "a comparative ethnography of highway-related
ences of everyday violence and contribute to conceptual
violence in the Highlands" and, at the same time, warn
debates about research methodologies and policy debates
against it because "it would be a tough choice as a field
about poverty, development, and violence (pp. 1-2). The
area" (p. 87). They see revenge as a "persistent and signifi?
strength of their approach rests in the use of Participatory
Urban (and Rural) Appraisal (PUA and PRA) methodologies, cant theme" that must be considered in studies of violence
which include community members in defining and (p. de-108). Moreover, they convincingly argue that revenge
ploying local knowledge in data collection about violence
has importance to all analyses of violence, not just those of
and poverty (p. 23). A weakness in their data collection
so-called "newly emergent" ex-tribal societies (p. 109).
is that the PUA and PRA presented often seem to dwin-Carolyn Nordstrom's Shadows of War: Violence, Power,
dle to little more than loosely organized (and very small)
and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century is
focus groups guessing at percentages, which the authors
truly cutting-edge research. Having blazed the trail for field
research in harsh conditions with The Paths to Domina?
then present as foundational or epidemiological knowledge
tion, Resistance and Terror (Nordstrom and Martin 1992),
about the situation: for example, "A group of adolescent
Fieldwork under Fire (Nordstrom and Robben 1995), and
women in La Merced said that most drug addicts were male

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 Review Essays 535

A Different Kind of War Story (1997), Nordstrom brings to and collecting narratives of banditry and survival along the
bear her considerable experience of two decades as an way. As "T," a local from nearby Hagen who accompanied
ethnographer on the front lines of war on various conti- them, explained after they had been stopped on the road at
nents. The result, in this reader's opinion, is the very best rifle point: "These people attack travelers on the highway
of what anthropology has to offer as a methodology for the because they are so poor. Their land is not fertile and good
study of contemporary conflict and as critical analysis seek? like ours in Hagen. They cannot grow coffee and sell it. So
ing to contribute to conflict resolution by revealing hith- they turn to robbery, hold-ups, thieving and tricks. That's
erto hidden economies of violence from the individual to why they do it" (p. 85).
the structural. On war, Nordstrom asks, "How do we under? These books are also, each in their own way, medita-
stand so vast a phenomenon while retaining the vibrancy tions of on trauma, history, memory, and gender. Although
Moser and Mcllwaine confront the gendered perceptions
the lives that constitute it?" (p. 5). She looks at war through
the prism of cyclical global inequality without ever losingof women who fear rape and girls "who repeatedly drew
sight of the people "standing on that thin line of survivalviolence in the home" (p. 101), they also make clear that
between living and becoming a casualty of war" (pp. 8-9). "the memory of previous, politically motivated violence,
Interrogating power in the shadows in which war deals are coupled with contemporary everyday violence, means that
cut and fortunes are made, she questions the lines drawn by fear continues to permeate urban societies" (p. 6). They lo-
conventional wisdom between licit and illicit trades of pre- cate the perpetuation of violence in the privatization and
cious gems, pharmaceuticals, and weapons systems from informalization of public security resulting from the state's
Africa to Europe to the United States. She challenges her?inability to secure order (p. 6). In New Guinea, Stewart and
self and the discipline of anthropology when she affirms Strathern trace their analysis of violence to the "impact of
that "ethnography must be able to follow the question" colonialism on local systems of exchange" (pp. 52-53) and
(p. 13). She asks, "Where does war begin and end?" and, point to the use of coercion with guns and seduction with
again, insists that ethnography "must be able to bringvaluable a shells as being the two key tools of empire build-
people and a place to life in the eyes and hearts of those ing used to pacify the Highlanders. Although Nordstrom
who have not been there" (p. 14). This is exactly what Nord? explicitly addresses the challenges, sacrifices, and miseries
strom achieves in Shadows of War. This remarkable book is encountered by mothers and daughters trying to survive in
an excellent choice for undergraduate reading. In my Intro? war zones, she does so without losing the colonial and Cold
duction to Cultural Anthropology course, one student com- War histories of intervention that set the stage for genera-
mented, "I can't stop talking about this book. I keep asking tions of armed conflict. She explains that "internationally
everyone I know if they have ever thought about where dia- forged norms of militarization," as well as local and national
monds come from and how they get here. Then I tell them histories and realities, define violence (p. 10).
about this book" (conversation with author, December 7, Each work also raises an issue implicit in any discussion
2005). of long-term violence?where do the guns come from? For
In each of these three works, testimony is integral and example, Moser and Mcllwaine mention that maras (gangs)
used as a way of telling the stories of survivors as well as in Guatemala and Colombia "have access to a range of
those of the authors of violence. In large part, Shadows ofweapons, including high caliber military weapons such as
M-16s, AK-47s, and RPG-2 rocket launchers" (pp. 153-154).
War is memorable because it is driven by the voices of those
who are more often marginalized or overlooked than in? Unfortunately, there is no analysis of the possible sources
cluded; these range from the humanitarian flight pilot who of these weapons, which leaves hanging the obvious ques?
is also a smuggler to the children who live in storm drainstion: Where do kids get rocket launchers? No doubt, Nord-
under the streets of Luanda to the businessman smuggler strom's study of shadow economies better placed her to con-
who shared this insight on (il)legal economies: "Honestly, clude that the supply of these weapons, like the demand for
the systems we work with are a lot more organized than the these weapons, is socially constructed and, therefore, the
governments we work with" (p. 126). Through masterful solution to the proliferation of light weapons is also social
blending of testimony and ethnography, Nordstrom also (p. 152). As she states from the outset of her work, it is the
builds her own narrative about the experience of anthro? far-reaching networks that ferry supplies of all types in and
out of the most distant battlefields that make both war and
pological research as a way of presenting the violence of
everyday life in the war zone. peace possible (p. 10). Stewart and Strathern present com-
Just as testimony is integral for Nordstrom, the inclu-pelling findings about the Raskol phenomenon that parallel
sion of often-marginalized voices is a clear goal for Moserthe other works reviewed here. Like Moser and Mcllwaine's
and Mcllwaine. Unpacking the roots of economic violence, observations about youth drawn into violent organizations
they cite an unemployed Colombian man who tells them: (p. 155), Stewart and Strathern point to the ease of procure-
"If they don't let us work, we are pushed into robbing. Youment of illegal weapons as both facilitating Raskol violence
can't let yourself die from hunger, and less so your chil? and tempting youth with "fantasies of empowerment"
dren" (p. 88). Although Stewart and Strathern rely heavily (p. 74).
on secondary sources for much of their analysis, they of? Truth, fantasy, the collection of evidence, the consti?
fer a vivid description of driving the Highlands Highway tution of reality, and the human condition are cultural

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536 American Anthropologist ? Vol. 108, No. 3 ? September 2006

markers in these works. Nordstrom writes, "We know far machismo and infidelity among the causes of family con?
less about the wounding of culture, social dislocation, and flict and violence that makes the children turn into "good
the destruction of the very epistemological and ontologi? for nothings, alcoholics, drug addicts or join[ed] maras,
cal tools by which we construct our world and ourselves in while female children became single mothers or prostitutes"
it" (p. 68). Thus, she seeks to understand how and why the (p. 113). This kind of generalization is left with no analy?
complex relationships of truth, untruth, and silencing are sis. Who are these teachers? What is their relationship to
produced. Taken together, these authors share an anxiety the community? Without a nuanced analysis, it is a slip-
about anthropological and ethnographic research on vio? pery slope to the worn theories of Oscar Lewis and the cul?
lence, and they raise issues about the practical and political ture of poverty (1961). Indeed, although Lewis is cited in
work of anthropology. Ultimately, each work suggests that the text (p. 12), a whole body of anthropological literature
it is important for anthropologists to be involved in interna? critiquing the culture of poverty thesis from Carol Stack
tional public policy discussions that affect the communities (1974) to Philippe Bourgois (1995) is absent, ipso facto lo-
in which we work. cating poverty in flawed families rather than structures of
marginalization. The problem with the teachers' story, bor-
For Moser and Mcllwaine, it is clear that anthropologi?
rowing from Nordstrom, is that "it is the poor and unedu-
cal research can better define public policy debates about de?
velopment, poverty, and violence. Whatever quibbles one cated, the marginal, and the criminal who are blamed for
may have with their research model, there is no doubt that irrational violence" (p. 31).
these authors break new ground by carrying out participa? Nordstrom takes on perceptions of urban poverty and
violence in Angola when she challenges the binary catego?
tory research in communities that many would categorize
as "no-go zones" because of violence and that they do rization
so of violent acts and violent people by doing field
work on the frontlines in exactly the places where others
with the explicit goal of using their findings to bring rele-
avoid going day or night?except, of course, those who live
vant policy solutions to those affected by poverty and vio?
there. In so doing, she also relentlessly challenges her own
lence (p. 21). This work builds on Moser's significant previ-
ous work on gender and violence with a specific focusperceptions:
on
anthropological contributions to the resolution of armed
at the side of the road, he scrambled down a storm drain.
conflict (2001). Nordstrom's ethnography is a critique of
It was like a storm drain in any country, a small opening at
current public policy on many fronts. She challenges the the roadside. For street children, a drain is its own natural
phraseology used to discuss youth survivors of war such security system, since a full-size man would not fit into
as "the lost generation of children" (p. 184) and "these it. Without taking the time to think, I squeezed down
kids can be dangerous" (p. 175) as a "jagged assumption" the drain after the child. In my mind's eye, when I heard
about children living in the drains under the streets, I had
in which "violence, instability and aggressive poverty" can
visualized decaying, dirt-encrusted tunnels with children
be their only future. For Nordstrom, such labels simulta-
huddled in dismal conditions amid stagnant water and
neously mark the children as deprived and violent while rats. Everyone I knew held the same idea. But when I
denying their creative capacities, peace-building practices, entered the drain, I felt the world stop, existentially, for
and very real analyses of their own situations (p. 185). She a moment?and my view of the human condition, in its
demands not that we listen to her, but that we listen to the most profound sense, expanded.
In this drain the children had created a home and a
children who say, "We need a chance, a job, people to be?
community. It was spotlessly clean. [p. 176]
lieve in us" (p. 185). Stewart and Strathern challenge readers
to look to so-called "primitive societies" for new conflict res? Thus, Nordstrom locates the beginning of peace at the
olution frameworks as well as community models for trans? epicenter of violence and notes that "people stop war by cre?
forming violence into positive, rather than negative, forms ating peace, not by fighting war better or harder or meaner"
of exchange (p. 153). (p. 179). She challenges those of us who study war to include
Moser and Mcllwaine point to widespread impunity, the "profound creativity average people employ in surviv-
ineffective judicial systems, and lack of public confidence
ing war and forging peace" (p. 51).
in security forces (p. 46) as contributing causal factors to All three works point to the importance of includ?
daily violence dominating the lives of ordinary Colombiansing youth in development projects?some more optimisti-
cally than others. Whereas youth in Guatemala, Angola,
and Guatemalans. The extreme violence and unpredictable
and Colombia continue to clamber for access to education,
danger in which people live are illustrated on the participa?
tory maps community members drew in their attempts Highlander
to youth in Papua New Guinea find themselves un-
make meaning with the Moser-Mcllwaine research teams. employable despite their education because of insufficient
Most PUA participants seem to have located violence withinlevels of industrial employment that appear to be limited
their own community, neighborhood, or family experience, by the types of outside investment the country is able to
which should give new insights into everyday violence. Un-attract (p. 73). Thus, although "Raskol" youth plunder trav-
elers on the highways of the globalizing world, some schol?
fortunately, the authors did not offer their own expert anal?
ysis when it was most needed and link these experiences ars have suggested that this thievery is a form of wealth
back to their own previously cited structures of violence.redistribution harkening to the style of the traditional "Big
For example, a group of teachers in Guatemala identify
Man" in times gone by (pp. 78-79). Stewart and Strathern

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 Review Essays 537

find this analysis unsettling because it makes violent theft

not only on the proliferation of light weapons, drug traf-
ficking, and money laundering but also on the spread of
comparable to "the entrepreneurship of business leaders"
new ideas and creative forms of resistance to violence. In?
(p. 79). Perhaps, but as Nordstrom notes, to postulate non-
state networks and informal subsistence systems (suchdeed, as in each of the works considered here, anthropolo?
highway robbery) as occupying a separate realm from ofn? gists look to community members and their local knowl?
edge for both understanding and resolution of the conflicts
cial corruption or entrepreneurship is to miss "entirely the
at hand. In this way, each work offers the reader a glimpse
complexities of power defining global systems" (p. 99). One
such complex system only mentioned in passing by Stewart of how survivors understand their world and envision their
and Strathern is the environmental and community dam-future.
age wrought by international mining in Papua New Guinea
and its relationship to the "Raskol" phenomena (pp. 71-
REFERENCES CITED
72). No doubt here as elsewhere, the local and international
economies of exchange and violence are linked (p. 53). Arextaga, Begona
1997 Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism and Political S
Moser and Mcllwaine tackle community recovery in jectivity in Northern Ireland. Princeton: Princeton Univer
postconflict Guatemala and in Colombia's ongoing conflict. Press.
Across communities, they note a resonance on the need to Bourgois, Philippe
1995 In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in el Barrio. New York:
enhance trust, cohesion, and the bonds of community. Sig?
Cambridge University Press.
nificantly, they find that women's organizations in both Feldman, Allan
countries play an important, if often invisible, role in com?1991 Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and
Political Terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of
munity recovery and the rebuilding of community relations
Chicago Press.
with the state (p. 193). They also report that paramilitary,LaCapra, Dominick
gang, and crime organizations flourish where the state is ex?1998 History and Memory after Auschwitz. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
perienced as "weak, corrupt, or ineffective" (p. 12). An im?
Lewis, Oscar
portant observation is the predominance of national and
1961 The Children of Sanchez. New York: Random House.
Moser, Caroline
international NGOs in community projects, the fact that
2001 The Gendered Continuum of Violence and Conflict:
the vast majority of NGOs are service providers, not mem?
An Operational Framework. In Victims, Perpetrators or
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nally, are hierarchical, and sometimes have decisions made line Moser and Fiona Clark, eds. Pp. 30-52. London: Zed
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Nordstrom, Carolyn
have little to no role in determining NGO goals and ob-1997 A Different Kind of War Story. Philadelphia: University of
jectives despite the significant impact these NGOs have on Pennsylvania Press.
their lives. Likewise, Nordstrom reminds us that war is aNordstrom, Carolyn, and Antonius Robben, eds.
1995 Fieldwork under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence
"political process" (p. 172) for all involved. She points to and Survival. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Nordstrom, Carolyn, and JoAnn Martin, eds.
1992 The Paths to Domination, Resistance, and Terror. Berkeley:
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(p. 190). She reminds us that just as political instabilityNussbaum,
is Martha
good business for some people, it can be good politics for
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some people as well (p. 196). bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stack, Carol
One conclusion to be drawn from reading these three 1974 All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community.
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Looking for Identity in the Muslim World

Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Contesting Rituals: Islam and Practices of Identity M
ing.
Egypt. Lila Abu-Lughod. Chicago: University Chicago Pamela Stewart and Andrew Strathern, eds. Durh
Press,
2005. 319 pp. NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2005. 239 pp.

Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective

KIMIden?
SHIVELY
tity in Modern Iraq. Eric Davis. Berkeley: University of
Kutztown University
California Press, 2005. 385 pp.

Religion, Social Practice, and Contested Hegemonies: Re-on identity politics have proliferated in t
Books
constructing the Public Sphere in Muslim Majority Soci?
years or so, especially works exploring collective id
eties. Armando Salvatore and Mark LeVine, eds. Newmodern
York: Muslim nations and communities. This
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 249 pp. ment is perhaps an understandable response to t

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