NOTES

"The Anthropology of Conflict," Jeffrey A. Sluka, in The Paths of Domination, Resistance and Terror, Carolyn Nordstrom and JoAnn Martin, eds., Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

FREQUENCY AND INTENSITY OF VIOLENCE ON INCREASE (pp. 18-19)

The fact that today the study of social conflict has become a dominant anthropological interest is a reflection of this world historical trend. (p. 19)

ANTHROPOLOGY

Cross-cultural (comparative) perspective, holistic approach, participant observation, microanalysis (local level), emic (local) viewpoint

Anthropology contributes neglected subjective, experiential, meaningful, or cultural dimension to conflict analysis (p. 20)

Paradigm shift

Up through WWII --- structural-functional approach, frustration-aggression hypothesis, order of stable (equilibrium) societies as isolates

After WWII --- disorder with conflict as structure and process in unstable and rapidly changing societies

(influenced by decolonization, national liberation struggles, nuclear threat, Vietnam, etc. p. 21)

Ethics

Anthropologist may view conflict as positive, negative, both, or neither, may be explicit or implicit, may value change or stability, depending in part on theoretical as well as political position (e.g., Marxist or functionalist) (pp. 29-30)

KEY ANALYTICAL CONCEPTS

culture, symbolism (meaning), structure (relations), process (dynamics), power (politics and economics) (pp. 22-23)

DEFINITIONS

Social conflict - "a struggle over values and claims to status, power, and scarce resources, in which the aims of the conflicting parties are not only to gain the desired values but also to neutralize, injure, or eliminate their rivals" (Lewis Coser) (p. 22)
2.
Also - a form of institutionalized social interaction that is culturally defined--- the definition, form, content, character,
and meaning vary culturally from society to society

Culture is a complex system of symbolic meanings, and conflict is expressed by means of symbolic forms and actions (p. 24)

Symbolic anthropology of social conflict focuses on the analysis of the dynamic relationship between conflict, cultural symbols, and power relations (politics and economics) (p. 25)

BASIC THEORETICAL AXIOMS

1. relationship between conflict and socially learned, shared, transmitted systems of symbolic meanings
2. individual-subjective and group-social perspectives
3. processes of conflict and the structures that underlie them
4. structure or system and power-conflict theory (pp. 22-23)
[5. conflict follows kinship in nonstate societies and in state societies common interest (class, status, party) (p. 32)]

DUAL NATURE OF CONFLICT

positive/negative, constructive/destructive, integrating/disintegrating, functional/dysfunctional, order/disorder, stability/change, unifying/divisive, social fusion/fission, etc. (p. 28)

CONCLUSION

Conflict and violence inherent in state and in modern nation-state with social stratification --- and according to Sluka, can only try to resolve or reduce, but cannot eliminate conflict (social inequality, oppression, exploitation, injustice, etc.) (pp. 30-31)

But Sluka asserts --- "A degree of conflict and violence may be inevitable in social life, but no social condition is inevitable. Social conditions are created by people, and what people create, they can change. Social conditions can, at the very least, be changed so that conflict and violence will no longer appear as the only effective political recourse many oppressed and powerless groups have at their disposal." (p. 32) [But Sluka stops short of even mentioning nonviolent alternatives for conflict resolution, etc.]

(Compare Colson on pp. 279-280,282-283)

Suggested reading: Jeffrey A. Sluka, 1990, "Participant Observation in Violent Social Contexts," Human Organization 49(2):114-126.