Cultural Anthropology SSC-327
Civil Society
1. 7.3 Discuss the concept of civil society.
Civil society consists of the social domain of diverse interest groups that function outside the government to organize economic, political, and other aspects of life. According to the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, civil society encompasses social groups and institutions that exist between the individual and the state. The Italian social theorist Antonio Gramsci defined two types of civic institutions: those that support the state, such as the church and schools, and those that oppose state power, such as trade unions, social protest groups, and citizens’ rights groups. This section discusses an example of a state-supporting group as well as an activist group that opposes state oppression.
Journal 7.3 Student Groups as Civil Society
Activist groups are groups formed with the goal of changing certain conditions, such as political repression, violence, and human rights violations. In studying activist groups, cultural anthropologists are interested in learning what motivates the formation of such groups, what their goals and strategies are, and what leadership patterns they exhibit. Many anthropologists work for or with activist groups to support social justice (see Anthropology Works). CO-MADRES of El Salvador (see Map 12.4) is a women-led social movement in Latin America (Stephen 1995). CO-MADRES is a Spanish abbreviation for an organization called, in English, the Committee of Mothers and Relatives of Political Prisoners, Disappeared and Assassinated of El Salvador. It was founded in 1977 by a group of mothers protesting the atrocities committed by the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government and military against a coalition of progressive groups including many indigenous people. During the civil war that lasted from 1979 until 1992, a total of 80,000 people died and 7,000 more disappeared, or one in every 100 Salvadorans.
The initial CO-MADRES group comprised nine mothers. One year later, it had grown to nearly 30 members, including some men. During the 1980s, the growing organization gained support from other Latin American countries, as well as from Australia, the United States, Canada, and European countries. Unfortunately, the group’s increased visibility also attracted repression from the Salvadoran government. Its office was bombed several times during the 1980s, 48 members of CO-MADRES have been detained, and five have been assassinated. Harassment and disappearances continued even after the signing of the Peace Accords in January 1992: “In February 1993, the son and the nephew of one of the founders of CO-MADRES were assassinated in Usulutan. This woman had already lived through the experience of her own detention, the detention and gang rape of her daughter, and the disappearance and assassination of other family members” (1995:814).
In the 1990s, CO-MADRES focused on holding the state accountable for human rights violations during the civil war, providing protection for political prisoners, seeking assurances of human rights protection in the future, working against domestic violence, educating women about political participation, and initiating economic projects for women. The work of CO-MADRES, throughout its history, has incorporated elements of both the “personal” and the “political,” concerns of mothers and other family members for lost kin and for exposing and halting human rights abuses of the state and the military. One lesson from the CO-MADRES is that activist groups formed by women based on kinship and domestic concerns, but their impact can have important high-level effects.
Social Capital, Social Movements, and Social Media
This chapter began with a discussion of factors that bring people together, such as friendship and forms of identity, and then moved on to discussing divisive factors. It concludes with the introduction of an important concept, social capital. The term social capital refers to the intangible resources that exist through social ties, trust, and cooperation. Many local organizations around the world use social capital to provide basic social needs, and they are often successful even in the poorest countries.
It is difficult to define, much less measure, social capital and its effects, both short-term and long-term. But few would disagree that being in a social group tends to have a multiplier effect. More and more, those who work with marginalized and oppressed people and groups show that by bringing people together, building social solidarity and a sense of group security, creates that indefinable multiplier effect of social capital—a non-monetized form of value that one can “bank” and “cash in hand” as needed. Examples in Chapters 14 and 15 illustrate how social capital works for migrants and the poor.
Social scientists use the term new social movements to refer to the many social activist groups that emerged in the late twentieth century around the world. These groups are often formed by oppressed minorities such as indigenous peoples, ethnic groups, women, and the poor. They are improving their lives through the strategic use of social capital as well as social media.
New social movements are taking advantage of ever-changing forms of communication through the Internet to broaden their membership, exchange ideas, and raise funds (Escobar 2002). Internet-enhanced social movements now often play important political roles. In a positive way, the Internet allows new social movements to build a following and potentially transform society. Formal political leaders, as discussed in the next chapter, are paying increased attention to enhancing their personal websites and those of their parties and communicating through Facebook, Twitter, and many more channels. The author of this book gets frequent e-mails from (apparently) Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton.(END of CHAPter7)
(Chapter8)
A political leader of the Ashanti people of Ghana, West Africa. British colonialists referred to such leaders with the English term “chief.” Perhaps the English word “king” might have been more appropriate. Nonetheless, the term chief has endured. In 2012, Ashanti people in the United States installed their New York chief who is laden with gold necklaces, bracelets, and a crown as well as wearing kente cloth (Semple 2012). At the ceremony elders poured libations, and drummers inspired hundreds of guests, draped in kente, to dance. The New York chief, as of 2011, is Acheampong-Tieku (try pronouncing it as you read it), who goes by Michael in his civilian life and works in the Bronx as an accountant. He was nominated by a 10-member council of regional Ashanti elders and voted on by community members. His ceremonial and practical duties include mediating family and business disputes before they reach the courts and helping Ghanaian immigrants find work, housing, health care, and legal aid. His most pressing challenge, however, is the survival of his organization. Many of the New York Ghanaian association’s original members have moved back to Ghana or died. Ghanaian-American youth are not interested in the association and its support of Ghanaian traditions.
This chapter covers topics in political and legal anthropology, two subfields of cultural anthropology. Political anthropology, discussed in the chapter’s first section, addresses the area of human behavior and thought related to public power—who has it and who does not, degrees of power, bases of power, abuses of power, relationships between political and religious power, political organization and government, social conflict and social control, and morality and law. Legal anthropology, the subject of the second section, is the study of socially accepted ways of maintaining social order and resolving conflict.
Public Power: Political Organization and Leadership
1. 8.1 Recognize how anthropologists define and study public power.
Compared with political scientists, cultural anthropologists take a broader view of politics that includes many kinds of behavior and thought beyond formal party politics and government as most readers of this book have experienced. Cultural anthropologists offer examples of political systems and behavior that do not look “political” to people who have grown up in modern states.
This chapter uses the term politics to refer to the organized use of public power, not the private micropolitics of family and domestic groups. Power is the ability to bring about results with the potential or use of force. Closely related to power are authority and influence. Authority is the ability to bring about results based on a person’s status, respect, and reputation in the community. Authority differs from power in two ways: Power is backed up by the potential use of force, and power can be wielded by an individual who lacks authority. Influence is the ability to bring about results by exerting social or moral pressure. Unlike authority, influence may be exerted from a low-status, marginal position.
Power, Influence, and Authority
Power, authority, and influence are variations on how a person can achieve desired outcomes.
All three terms are relational. A person’s power, authority, or influence exists in relation to other people. Power implies the greatest likelihood of a coercive and hierarchical relationship, and authority and influence offer the most scope for consensual, cooperative decision making. Power, authority, and influence are all related to politics, power being the strongest basis for action and decision making—and potentially the least moral.
Anthropologists define political organization as the groups within a culture that are responsible for public decision making and leadership, maintaining social cohesion and order, protecting group rights, and ensuring safety from external threats.
The many forms of political organization that occur cross-culturally can be clustered into four types that are related to the modes of livelihood (Figure 8.1).
Figure 8.1
Modes of Political Organization, Conflict, and Social Control
Bands
A band , the form of political organization associated with foraging groups, involves flexible membership and no formal leaders. Just as foraging has been the predominant mode of livelihood for almost all of human existence, the band is humanity’s oldest form of political organization. And just as foraging is in danger of extinction as a way of life, so is band political organization.
A band typically comprises between 20 and a few hundred people at most, all related through kinship. These units come together at certain times of the year, depending on their foraging patterns and ritual schedule.
Band membership is flexible: If a person has a serious disagreement with another person or a spouse, one option is to leave that band and join another. Leadership is informal, with no one person named as a permanent leader. Depending on events, such as organizing the group to relocate or to send people out to hunt, a particular person may be a leader for that event, someone whose advice and knowledge are especially respected.
All members of the group are social equals, and a band leader has no special status. He has a certain degree of authority or influence, perhaps as a respected hunter or storyteller, but he does not have power and cannot force others to accept his views. Social leveling mechanisms prevent anyone from accumulating much authority or influence. Political activity in bands involves mainly decision making about migration, food distribution, and the resolution of interpersonal conflicts. External conflict between groups is rare because territories of different bands are widely separated and the population density is low.
The band level of organization barely qualifies as a form of political organization, because groups are flexible, leadership is ephemeral, and there are no signs or emblems of political affiliation. Some anthropologists argue, therefore, that true politics did not exist in undisturbed band societies. Bands still exist, but their members have had to learn to interact with other forms of political organization.
Tribes
A tribe is a more formal type of political organization than the band. Typically associated with horticulture and pastoralism, tribal organization arose between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago with the emergence of these modes of livelihood. A tribe is a political group that comprises several bands or lineage groups, each with a similar language and lifestyle and each occupying a distinct territory. Tribal groups may be connected through a clan structure, in which most people claim descent from a common ancestor although they may be unable to trace the exact relationship. Kinship is the primary basis of membership. Tribal groupings contain from a hundred to several thousand people. Tribes are found in the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere.
A tribal headman (most tribal leaders are male) is a more formal leader than a band leader. A headman must be hardworking and generous and must possess good personal skills. A headman is a political leader on a part-time basis only. This role is more demanding than that of a band leader. Depending on the mode of livelihood, a headman will be in charge of determining the times for moving herds, planting and harvesting, and for setting the time for seasonal feasts and celebrations. Internal and external conflict resolution is also his responsibility. A headman relies mainly on authority and influence, rather than on power. These strategies are effective because tribal members are all kin and are loyal to each other.
BIG-MAN AND BIG-WOMAN LEADERSHIP In between tribal and chiefdom organizations is the big-man system or big-woman system , a form of political organization in which individuals build a political base and gain prestige, influence, and authority through a system of redistribution based on personal ties and grand feasts (review Chapter 3). Anthropological research in Melanesia (Map 8.1), a large region in the South Pacific extending from New Guinea to Fiji, established the existence of big-man politics (Sahlins 1963). Similar favor-based political systems are found elsewhere, including in contemporary states.
Political ties of a successful big-man or big-woman include people in several villages. A big-man tends to have marginally greater wealth than his followers, although people continue to expect him to be generous. The core supporters of a big-man tend to be kin, with extended networks that include nonkin. A big-man has heavy responsibilities. He is responsible for regulating internal affairs, such as the timing of crop planting, and external affairs, such as intergroup feasts, trade, and war. In some instances, a big-man is assisted in carrying out his responsibilities by a group of other respected men. These councils include people from the big-man’s different constituencies. Chiefdoms
A chiefdom is a form of political organization that includes permanently allied tribes and villages under one chief, a leader who possesses power. Compared with most tribes, chiefdoms have large populations, often numbering in the thousands. They are more centralized and socially complex. Hereditary systems of social ranking and economic stratification are a central feature of chiefdoms. Chiefs and their descendants have higher status than commoners, and intermarriage between members of the two strata is forbidden.
The chiefship must be filled at all times. When a chief dies or retires, he or she must be replaced. In contrast, the death of a band leader or of a big-man or big-woman does not require that someone else be chosen as a replacement. A chief has more responsibilities than a band or tribal leader. He or she regulates production and redistribution, solves internal conflicts, and plans and leads raids and warring expeditions. Criteria for becoming a chief include both ascribed and achieved qualities. Ascribed criteria include birth in a chiefly lineage and being the first son or daughter of the chief. Achievement is measured in terms of personal leadership skills, charisma, and accumulated wealth. Chiefdoms have existed throughout the world.
The Iroquois, located mainly in what today is New York State (see Map 3.2), provide a case of women’s indirect political importance (Brown 1975). Men were chiefs, but women and men councilors were the appointing body. Most men were gone for extended periods, waging war as far away as Delaware and Virginia. Women controlled production and distribution of the staple crop, maize. If the women did not want warriors to leave for a particular campaign, they would refuse to provide them with maize, thereby vetoing the plan.
An expanded version of the chiefdom occurs when several chiefdoms are joined in a confederacy. Such a group is headed by a chief of chiefs—a “big chief” or paramount chief. Many prominent confederacies have existed, including the Iroquois league of five nations, the Cherokee of Tennessee, the Algonquins of the Chesapeake region in present-day Virginia and Maryland, and confederacies in Hawai’i in the late 1700s. In the Algonquin confederacy, each village had a chief and the regional council was composed of local chiefs and headed by the paramount chief. Powhatan, father of Pocahontas, was paramount chief of the Algonquins when the British arrived in the early 1600s. States
A state is a centralized political unit encompassing many communities, a bureaucratic structure, and leaders who possess coercive power. The state is now the form of political organization in which all people live. Band organizations, tribes, and chiefdoms exist, but they are incorporated to varying degrees within state structures. Before 1000 bce, stateless societies were the norm. Now, the state rules as a form of political organization. Struggles exist around the world to define the boundaries of states and which group is or is not part of a particular state. Many groups would like to opt out of the state they are in and form their own state. The United Nations, when it was founded in 1945, recognized 51 states. It now recognizes 193 states.
STATE POWERS AND ROLES States have a wide range of powers and responsibilities:
· States engage in international relations to deal with other states about mutual concerns. The state may use force defensively to maintain its borders and offensively to extend its territory.
· States monopolize the use of force and the maintenance of law and order internally through laws, courts, and the police.
· States maintain standing armies and police (as opposed to part-time forces).
· States define citizenship and its rights and responsibilities. In complex societies, since early times, not all residents have been granted equal rights as citizens.
· States keep track of the number, age, gender, location, and wealth of their citizens through census systems that are regularly updated.
· States have the power to extract resources from citizens through taxation.
· States manipulate information. Information to protect the state and its leaders can be controlled both directly (through censorship, restricting access to certain information by the public, and promotion of favorable images via propaganda) and indirectly (through pressure on journalists, television networks, and other media to selectively present information or to present information in certain ways).
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‘Aye'll be back’: The quest for Scotland's Independence
SYMBOLS OF STATE POWER Religious beliefs and symbols are often closely tied to the power of state leadership: The ruler may be considered to be a deity or part deity, or may be a high priest of the state religion, or perhaps be closely linked with the high priest, who serves as advisor. Architecture and urban planning remind the populace of the greatness of the state.
Symbols of State Power
In democratic states, where leaders are elected by popular vote, and in socialist states, where political rhetoric emphasizes social equality, expense and elegance are muted by the adoption of more egalitarian ways of dress (even though in private, these leaders may live relatively opulent lives in terms of housing, food, and entertainment). The earlier practice of all Chinese leaders wearing a “Mao jacket,” regardless of their rank, was a symbolic statement of their antihierarchical philosophy. A quick glance at a crowd of people, including the prime minister of Canada or Britain or the president of the United States, would not reveal who was the leader, because dress differences are avoided. Even members of British royalty wear “street clothes” on public occasions where regalia are not required.
Beyond clothing, other commodities associated with top leadership positions include the quality of housing, food, and modes of transportation. State leaders live in grand mansions and often have more than one residence. The King of Morocco, for example, has several official palaces around the country, and he travels regularly from one to another. President George W. Bush was considered “one of the people” because he liked to eat hamburgers. State leaders do not travel the way ordinary citizens do. For security reasons, their ground vehicles may have bulletproof windows, and a cavalcade of security vehicles protects the leader’s vehicle. In many African countries, the most important new symbol of political power is an expensive imported car (Chalfin 2008).
GENDER AND LEADERSHIP IN STATES Most contemporary states are hierarchical and patriarchal, excluding members of lower classes and women from equal participation. Some states are less male dominated than others, but none is female dominated. One view of gender inequality in states suggests that increasing male dominance with the evolution of the state is based on men’s control of the technology of production and warfare (Harris 1993). Women in most cultures have limited access to these areas of power. In more peaceful states, such as Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, women’s political roles are more prominent.
Although women account for half of the world’s population, they form only, on average, 19 percent of the world’s parliamentary members (or the equivalent of parliament) (Franceschet, Krook, and Piscopo 2012). The highest percentage currently is in Rwanda, at over 50 percent, a result of the death of many men in the political violence that occurred between the Hutu and Tutsi people. Countries with over 25 percent of women parliamentarians are either African states, such as Rwanda and South Africa, that have recently experienced violence, or Scandinavian states, which are politically progressive.
Many countries with relatively high percentages of women in parliament (or the equivalent) have mandated gender quotas, or required percentages of seats that must be filled by women. Debate is ongoing as to whether such quotas will make a difference in international or domestic policy-making. That is, does having more women in leadership positions promote policies in support of “women’s issues” such as peace, reproductive rights, and support for human capital investments (schools, children’s programs)?
This discussion raises the question of gender essentialism: Does the fact of being a man or woman necessarily predict that the person will support policies that favor men or women, respectively? Some states have, or recently have had, women as prime ministers or presidents, including Indira Gandhi in India, Golda Meir in Israel, Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Angela Merkel in Germany, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Liberia, and Tarja Halonen in Finland. Many female heads of state are related by kinship, as wife or daughter, to male heads of state. Indira Gandhi, for example, was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the popular first prime minister of independent India. It is unclear whether these women inherited the role or achieved it indirectly through socialization as a member of a political family, or both. Men who are heads of state, or members of parliament or its equivalent, may have also gained their position through kinship. Social Order and Social Conflict
1. 8.2 Identify ways that cultures maintain social order and address conflict.
Many Maasai people of Tanzania and Kenya work in cities and interact with international tourists, and some attend universities. But most rural Maasai, traditionally pastoralists who value their freedom to roam over vast areas, have limited knowledge of global events. Some rural villages lack electricity, so not everyone has access to a television. In 2002, when Kimeli Naiyomeh returned to his village in a remote area of Kenya following his medical studies at Stanford University in California, he told stories that stunned the villagers (Lacey 2002). They had not heard about the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. He described how massive fires destroyed buildings so high that they stretched into the clouds. The villagers could not believe that a building could be so tall that people jumping from it would die.
The stories about 9/11 saddened the villagers. They decided they should do something to help the victims. Cows are the most precious objects among the Maasai. As Kimeli Naiyomeh comments, “The cow is almost the center of life for us… . It’s sacred. It’s more than property. You give it a name. You talk to it. You perform rituals with it” (2002:A7). In June 2002, in a solemn ceremony, the villagers gave 14 cows to the United States. After the cows were blessed, they were transferred to the deputy chief of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. He expressed his country’s gratitude and explained that transporting the cows to the United States would be difficult. The cows were sold and the money went to support Maasai schools.
Violence, as well as the chances for peace, has global implications more than ever before. As Eben Kirksey, who has worked in West Papua for over a decade, says, we live in “entangled worlds” (2012). In West Papua, which may seem remote to most readers of this book, people have cell phones and pay attention to the world news on a daily basis. When Kirksey arrived to start his fieldwork, people there informed him that an anthropologist had been there before, and they asked him what he could do for them, pointing out their situation and needs. This initial meeting took Kirksey into a long exploration of how the people of West Papua have experienced terrifying forms of colonialism and, more recently, militarism . Militarism is the dominance of the armed forces in administration of the state and society. So far, the people of West Papua have responded with little direct resistance to outside forces but have displayed behavior that could be called collaboration for survival.
This section discusses social order and peace, including informal arrangements and formal laws and systems of crime prevention and punishment. It begins with the cross-cultural study of social order and then moves to a discussion of conflict and violence.
In anthropology, social control is the process by which people maintain orderly life in groups. Social control systems include informal social controls that exist through socialization for proper behavior, education, and peer pressure. They may also include formal systems of codified rules about proper behavior and punishments for deviation. In the United States and Canada, the Amish (review Culturama in Chapter 4) and Mennonites rely on informal social controls far more than do most microcultural groups. The Amish and Mennonites have no police force or legal system; the way social order is maintained is through religious teaching and group pressure. If a member veers from correct behavior, punishment such as ostracism (“shunning”) may be applied.
Norms and Laws
Cultural anthropologists distinguish two major instruments of social control: norms and laws. A social norm is an accepted standard for how people should behave that is usually unwritten and learned unconsciously through socialization. All societies have norms. Norms include, for example, the expectation that children should follow their parents’ advice, that people standing in line should be orderly, and that an individual should accept an offer of a handshake (in cultures where handshakes are the usual greeting) when meeting someone for the first time. Enforcement of social norms is informal. For example, a violation may simply be considered rude and the violator would be avoided in the future. Sometimes, however, direct action may be taken, such as asking someone who disrupts a meeting to leave. A more recent concept in political science is that of a global norm: a value that many people believe should be universally held and enforced. An example of a global norm that is not universally accepted is women’s equality in the public domain.
Social norms and laws vary cross-culturally. Visitors queue at the site of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China, the site of an expected 70 million visitors over the next six months with an average of 380,000 people expected daily. Queuing makes sense in densely populated situations.
A law is a binding rule created through custom or official enactment that defines correct behavior and the punishment for misbehavior. Systems of law are more common and more elaborate in state-level societies, but many nonstate societies have formalized laws. Religion often provides legitimacy for law. Australian Aborigines believe that law came to humans during the Dreamtime (also called the Dreaming), a period in the mythological past when the ancestors created the world. The terms law and religion are synonymous in contemporary Islamic states. Secular Western states consider their laws to be religiously neutral, although, in fact, much Western law is based on Judeo-Christian beliefs.
Systems of Social Control
The material that follows considers forms of social control in small-scale societies as contrasted with large-scale societies. The former are characterized more by the use of norms. The latter, notably states, rely more on legal sanctions, although local-level groups, such as neighbors, practice social sanctions among themselves. A final topic considers the relationship between the law and social inequality.
SOCIAL CONTROL IN SMALL-SCALE SOCIETIES Anthropologists distinguish between small-scale societies and large-scale societies in terms of conflict resolution, social order, and punishment of offenses.
Bands are small, close-knit groups, so disputes tend to be handled at the interpersonal level through discussion or one-on-one fights. Group members may act together to punish an offender through shaming and ridicule. Emphasis is on maintaining social order and restoring social equilibrium, not hurtfully punishing an offender. Ostracizing an offending member (forcing the person to leave the group) is a common means of punishment. Capital punishment (execution) is rare.
In some Australian Aboriginal societies, group laws restrict access to religious rituals and paraphernalia to men who have gone through a ritual initiation. If an initiated man shared secrets with an uninitiated person, the elders would delegate certain members of the group to kill the offender. In such instances, the elders act like a court.
In small-scale, nonstate societies, punishment is often legitimized through belief in supernatural forces and their ability to affect people. Among the highland horticulturalists of the Indonesian island of Sumba (see Map 1.2), one of the greatest offenses is to fail to keep a promise (Kuipers 1990). Breaking a promise will bring on “supernatural assault” by the ancestors of those who have been offended by the person’s misbehavior. The punishment may come in the form of damage to crops, illness or death of a relative, destruction of the offender’s house, or having one’s clothing catch on fire. When such a disaster occurs, the only recourse is to sponsor a ritual that will appease the ancestors.
The overall goal in dealing with conflict in small-scale societies is to return the group to harmony. Village fission (breaking up) and ostracism are mechanisms for dealing with more serious conflict.
SOCIAL CONTROL IN STATES In densely populated societies with more social stratification and more wealth, increased social stress occurs in relation to the distribution of surplus, inheritance, and rights to land. In addition, increased social scale means that not everyone knows everyone else. Face-to-face accountability exists only in localized groups. Three important factors in state systems of social control are as follows:
· Specialization of roles involved in social control
· Formal trials and courts
· Power-enforced forms of punishment, such as prisons and the death penalty
Informal mechanisms of social control, however, exist alongside these formal systems at the local level.
Specialization The specialization of tasks related to law and order, such as those performed by police, judges, and lawyers, increases with the emergence of state organization. Full-time professionals such as judges and lawyers emerged with the state. These professionals are often members of powerful social groups, a fact that perpetuates elite biases in the justice process itself.
Policing is a form of social control that includes processes of surveillance and the threat of punishment related to maintaining social order (Reiner 1996). Police are the specific organization and personnel who discover, report, and investigate crimes. As a specialized group, police are associated with states.
Japan’s low crime rate has attracted the attention of Western law-and-order specialists, who think that it may be the result of the police system there. They ask whether solutions to U.S. crime problems can be found in such Japanese policing practices as neighborhood police boxes, or small, local police offices, staffed by foot patrolmen and volunteer crime-prevention groups organized on a neighborhood basis. Fieldwork among police detectives in the city of Sapporo reveals aspects of Japanese culture and policing that promote low crime rates (Miyazawa 1992). In Japan, the police operate under high expectations that no false arrests will be made and that all arrests should lead to confession. And, in fact, the rate of confession is high. The high rate of confession may be due to the fact that the police do an excellent job of targeting the guilty party, or it may result from the nearly complete control of interrogation by the police. The police are allowed to keep suspects isolated for long periods, a practice that wears down resistance. The suspect’s statements are not recorded verbatim or taped; instead, the detectives write them down and the suspect is asked to sign them. Overall, policing culture in Japan gives more power to the police and less to the defendant than in the United States and has the potential to distort the process of justice.
Trials and Courts In societies where spirits and ancestors define wrongdoing and punishment, a person’s guilt is proved simply by the fact that misfortune has befallen him or her. If lightning damaged a person’s crops, for instance, then that person must have done something wrong. In other cases, guilt may be determined through trial by ordeal , a way of judging guilt or innocence in which the accused person is put through a test that is often painful. An accused person may be required to place his or her hand in boiling oil, for example, or to have a part of his or her body touched by a red-hot knife. Being burned is a sign of guilt, whereas not being burned means that the suspect is innocent.
The court system, with lawyers, judge, and jury, is used in many contemporary societies, although variation exists in how cases are presented and juries constituted. The goal of contemporary court trials is to ensure both justice and fairness. Analysis of courtroom dynamics and patterns of decision making in the United States and elsewhere, however, reveals ongoing problems in achieving these goals.
Prisons and the Death Penalty Administering punishment involves doing something unpleasant to someone who has committed an offense. As noted earlier, the most extreme form of punishment in small-scale societies is ostracism and only rarely death. A common form of punishment in the case of theft or murder in pastoralist societies, especially Islamic cultures of the Middle East, is that the guilty party must pay compensation to members of the family who have been harmed.
This man, in a military prison in Chechnya, is accused by the Russian government of participating with Chechen rebel forces. Human rights activists have been concerned about the mistreatment of prisoners in Chechnya for several years.
1. What human rights do prisoners have in your country?
The number of imprisoned people varies widely around the world. The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world (The Pew Charitable Trusts 2015). It is important to look at the rate of imprisonment as well as sheer numbers. The national incarceration rate is calculated as the number of people in prison per 100,000 people in a country. Countries vary widely in their incarceration rate. The United States has the highest incarceration rate, 743 per 100,000 people, followed by Rwanda 595, Russia, 568, and Georgia 547 (Walmsley 2010).
It is important to look inside national rates. In England and France, a disproportionate number of prisoners are Muslims (Moore 2008). Ethnic and gender differences in incarceration are marked in the United States (Pew Center 2015). One in 15 black men is in prison, and 1 in 9 black men 20 to 34 years of age is in prison. One in 355 white women ages 35 to 39 years is in prison, whereas 1 in 100 black women is behind bars. Among Hispanics, 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men is in prison. Within the United States, the state with the highest incarceration rate is Louisiana, and southern states in general have higher rates than northern states.
SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND THE LAW Critical legal anthropology is an approach within the cross-cultural study of legal systems that examines the role of law and judicial processes in maintaining the dominance of powerful groups through discriminatory practices rather than protecting members of less powerful groups. Systematic discrimination against ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, and women, among other categories, has been documented in judicial systems around the world, including those of long-standing democracies. This section presents an example from Australia.
At the invitation of Aboriginal leaders in Australia, Fay Gale and her colleagues conducted research comparing the treatment of Aboriginal youth and White youth in the judicial system (1990). The question posed by the Aboriginal leaders was “Why are our kids always in trouble?” Two directions can be pursued to find the answer. First, structural factors—such as Aboriginal displacement from their homeland, poverty, poor living conditions, and bleak future prospects—can be investigated. Second, the criminal justice system can be examined to see whether it treats Aboriginal and White youth equally. The researchers decided to direct their attention to the judicial system because little work had been done in that area by social scientists.
Findings show that Aboriginal youth are overrepresented at every level of the juvenile justice system, from apprehension (being caught by the police) through pretrial processes, to the ultimate stage of adjudication (the judge’s decision) and disposition (the punishment): “A far greater proportion of Aboriginal than other young people follow the harshest route… . At each point in the system where discretion operates, young Aborigines are significantly more likely than other young persons to receive the most severe outcomes of those available to the decision-makers” (1990:3). At the time of apprehension (being caught by the police), the suspect can be either formally arrested or informally reported. A formal arrest is made to ensure that the offender will appear in court. Officers ask suspects for a home address and whether they have a job. Aboriginal youth are more likely than White youth to live in an extended family in a poor neighborhood, and they are more likely to be unemployed. Thus, they tend to be placed in the category “undependable,” and they are formally arrested more than White youth for the same crime (Figure 8.2). The next step determines whether the suspect will be tried in Children’s Court or referred to Children’s Aid Panels. The Children’s Aid Panels in South Australia have gained acclaim worldwide for the opportunities they give to individuals to avoid becoming repeat offenders and take their proper place in society. But most Aboriginal youth offenders are denied access to them and instead have to appear in court, where the vast majority of youthful offenders end up pleading guilty. The clear and disturbing finding from this study is that the mode of arrest tends to determine each subsequent stage. To counter such unjust systems, many cultural anthropologists and others support and work to promote social justice , a concept of fairness based on social equality that seeks to ensure entitlements and opportunities for disadvantaged members of society.
Figure 8.2
Comparison of Outcomes for Aboriginal and White Youth in the Australian Judicial System