Cultural Anthropology SSC-327
ETHNIC CONFLICT Ethnic conflict and grievances may result from an ethnic group’s attempt to gain more autonomy or more equitable treatment. It may also be caused by a dominant group’s actions to subordinate, oppress, or eliminate an ethnic group by genocide (killing large numbers of a distinct ethnic, racial, or religious group) or ethnocide (destroying the culture of a distinct group).
In the past few decades, political violence has increasingly been enacted within states rather than between states. It is true that ethnic identity often provides people with an ideological commitment to a cause, but one should look beneath the labels to see whether deeper, structural issues exist. Consider Central Asia (Map 8.2), a vast region populated by many ethnic groups, none of which has a clear claim to the land on the grounds of indigeneity. Yet, in Central Asia, every dispute appears on the surface to have an ethnic basis: “Russians and Ukrainians versus Kazakhs over land rights and jobs in Kazakhstan, Uzbeks versus Tajiks over the status of Samarkhand and Bukhara, conflict between Kirghiz and Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan, and riots between Caucasian Turks and Uzbeks in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan” (Clay 1990:48). Attributing the causes of all such problems to ethnic differences overlooks competition for resources that is based on regional, not ethnic, differences. Uzbekistan has most of the cities and irrigated farmland, whereas Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan control most of the water, and Turkmenistan has vast oil and gas riches.
Map 8.2
Central Asian States
The five states of Central Asia are Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Central Asia is a large, landlocked region that is historically linked with pastoralism and the famous Silk Road, a trade route connecting the Middle East with China. The region’s terrain encompasses desert, plateaus, and mountains. Given its strategic location near several major world powers, it has often been a battleground of other states’ interests. The predominant religion is Islam, and most Central Asians are Sunnis. Languages are of the Turkic language group. Central Asia has an indigenous form of rap-style music in which lyrical improvisers engage in battles, usually accompanied by a stringed instrument. These musical artists, or akyns, use their art to campaign for political candidates.
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SECTARIAN CONFLICT Sectarian conflict is conflict based on perceived differences between divisions or sects within a religion, and often related to rights and resources. For hundreds of years, sectarian conflict has occurred within the British Isles, between Catholics and Protestants, both groups being Christian. Sectarian conflict between Muslims often follows a split between Shias and Sunnis (discussed in Chapter 12). This division is expressed in outright violence such as attacks on each other’s sacred sites. It also takes the form of indirect, structural violence, as shown by a study conducted in northern Pakistan during a period of Shia–Sunni conflict (Varley 2010). During the conflict, exclusionary medical service provision occurred in which Sunni women experienced second-class treatment at obstetric clinics to the extent that they retreated to using alternative medicine.
WAR One definition of war says that it is an open and declared conflict between two political units. This definition, however, rules out many warlike conflicts, including the American–Vietnam War because it was undeclared. Or, war may be defined simply as organized aggression. But this definition is too broad, because not all organized violence can be considered warfare. Perhaps the best definition is that war is organized conflict involving group action directed against another group and involving lethal force (Ferguson 1994, quoted in Reyna 1994:30).
Cultural variation exists in the frequency of war, the objectives of war, how war is waged, and how postwar social relations are rebuilt. Intergroup conflicts among free-ranging foragers that would fit the definition of war do not exist in the ethnographic record. The informal, nonhierarchical political organization among bands is not conducive to waging armed conflict. Bands do not have specialized military forces or leaders.
Although no evidence of warlike behavior among bands exists, it does among some tribal groups though one needs to take care in defining “war” because it can mean a situation in which contesting groups of men line up against each other with bows and arrows and shields, and the “war” stops when one man has been wounded. At one extreme, with reported high levels of warfare frequency, are the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon (see Map 3.3, and Think Like an Anthropologist).
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In states, armies and complex military hierarchies are supported by increased material resources through taxation and other forms of revenue generation. Greater state power allows for more powerful and effective military structures, which in turn increase the state’s power. Thus, a mutually reinforcing relationship emerges between the military and the state. Although most states are highly militarized, not all are, nor are all states equally militarized. Costa Rica (see Map 11.1) does not maintain an army.
Examining the causes of war between states has occupied scholars in many fields for centuries. Some experts have pointed to common, underlying causes, such as attempts to extend boundaries, secure more resources, ensure markets, support political and economic allies, and resist aggression from other states. Others point to humanitarian concerns that prompt participation in “just wars,” to defend values such as freedom or to protect human rights that are defined as such by one country and are being violated in another.
Causes of war in Afghanistan, to take one case, have changed over time (Barfield 1994). Since the seventeenth century, warfare increasingly became a way in which kings justified their power in terms of the necessity to maintain independence from outside forces such as the British and Czarist Russia. The last Afghan king was murdered in a coup in 1978. When the Soviet Union invaded in 1979, no centralized ruling group existed to meet it. The Soviet Union deposed the ruling faction, set up one of its own, and then killed over 1 million people, caused 3 million to flee the country, and left millions of others to be displaced internally. Still, in spite of the lack of a central command, ethnic and sectarian differences, and being outmatched in equipment by Soviet forces, the Afghanis waged a war of resistance that eventually wore down the Soviets, who withdrew in 1989.
The long-standing, undeclared war in Afghanistan suggests that war was a more effective tool of domination in earlier times when war settled matters more definitively (Barfield 1994). Before “modern” war, fewer troops were needed to maintain dominance after a conquest, because continued internal revolts were less common and the main issue was defense against rivals from outside. Now, since the U.S. “shock and awe” attack of Iraq, leaders must know that attacking and taking over a country are only the first stages in a more complicated process than the term regime change implies. Afghanistan is still attempting to recover and rebuild after over five decades of war (Shahrani 2002). Cultural factors influencing the country’s recovery include codes of honor that value political autonomy and require vengeance for harm received, the moral system of Islam, the drug economy, and the effects of intervention from outside powers involving several foreign governments most notably the United States, and major resource extracting corporations. The challenge of constructing a strong state with loyal citizens in the face of competing internal and external factors is great.
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GLOBAL–LOCAL CONFLICT The categories of conflict described previously involve units that are roughly parallel: ethnic groups, sectarian groups, or states. Another form of conflict has been taking place around the world since at least the fifteenth century when powerful European countries began to colonize tropical countries. This process, far from being over, is ongoing, though the major actors have shifted over time. The United States, known as the most powerful country in the world, has recently been involved in two simultaneous wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although justified as “wars against terrorism,” a more critical view would interpret them as neocolonial wars, that is, wars that seek to control strategic world areas for the material and political gain of the dominating country. Such wars are not formally declared, and they often do not conform to accepted international rules of engagement, including the treatment of prisoners.
Another type of conflict involves a private-sector (nongovernment) entity such as a multinational corporation versus a local group or groups that typically makes claims against, and often fights physically against, the corporation. Some cultural anthropologists work with multinational corporations to assist them in establishing and maintaining harmonious relations with people affected by their projects such as dams, mines, and oil drilling. The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly adopted by large multinationals, though implemented to varying degrees. The definition of CSR is contested, but most would agree that it boils down to business ethics that seek to generate profits for the corporation while avoiding harm to people and the environment: The goal is to pursue profits in line with protecting people and the planet.
Other anthropologists work as advocates on behalf of the so-called “affected people” to document harm inflicted by businesses and to gain compensation, meager as it typically is, and late-coming due to extended legal processes (see Anthropology Works). Another role for anthropology is at the beginning of the process of a resource extraction process, documenting the legal steps involved in the Environmental Impact Assessment phase and how, typically, the process is tilted in favor of the companies due to their power networks. In one case, in Peru, the mining company was able to bring in scientific experts to attest on its behalf; the campesinos (small farmers), who resisted the mine, lacked the ability to bring in their own counter-experts (Li 2009).
Think Like an Anthropologist
Yanomami, The “Fierce People”?
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The Yanomami are a horticultural people who live in dispersed villages of between 40 and 250 people in the Amazonian rainforest (Ross 1993). Since the 1960s, biological anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon has studied several Yanomami villages. He has written a widely read and frequently republished ethnography about the Yanomami, with early editions carrying the subtitle The Fierce People (1992 [1968]). He also helped produce classic ethnographic films about the Yanomami, including The Feast and The Ax Fight.
Chagnon’s writings and films have promoted a view of the Yanomami as exceptionally violent and prone to lethal warfare. According to Chagnon, about one-third of adult Yanomami males die violently, about two-thirds of all adults lose at least one close relative through violence, and over 50 percent lose two or more close relatives (1992:205). He has reported that one village was raided 25 times during his first 15 months of fieldwork. Although village alliances are sometimes formed, they are fragile and allies may turn against each other unpredictably.
The Yanomami world, as depicted by Chagnon, is one of danger, threats, and counterthreats. Enemies, human and supernatural, are everywhere. Support from one’s allies is uncertain. All of this uncertainty leads to what Chagnon describes as the waiteri (a Yanomami word) complex, a set of behaviors and attitudes that includes a fierce political and personal stance for men and forms of individual and group communication that stress aggression and independence. Fierceness is a dominant theme in socialization, as boys learn how to fight with clubs, participate in chest-pounding duels with other boys, and use a spear. Adult males are aggressive and hostile toward adult females, and boys learn to be aggressive toward girls from an early age.
Chagnon provides a biological, Darwinian explanation for the fierceness shown by the Yanomami. He reports that the Yanomami explain that village raids and warfare are carried out so that men may obtain wives. Although the Yanomami prefer to marry within their village, a shortage of potential brides exists because of the Yanomami practice of female infanticide. Although the Yanomami prefer to marry endogamously, taking a wife from another group is preferable to remaining a bachelor. Men in other groups, however, are unwilling to give up their women—hence the necessity for raids. Other reasons for raids are suspicion of sorcery or theft of food.
Chagnon argues that within this system warfare contributes to reproductive success because successful warriors are able to gain a wife or more than one wife (polygyny is allowed). Thus, successful warriors will have higher reproductive rates than unsuccessful warriors. Successful warriors, Chagnon suggests, have a genetic advantage for fierceness, which they pass on to their sons, leading to a higher growth rate of groups with violent males through genetic selection for fierceness. Male fierceness, in this view, is biologically adaptive.
Marvin Harris, taking the cultural materialist perspective, says that protein scarcity and population dynamics in the area are the underlying causes of warfare (1984). The Yanomami lack plentiful sources of meat, which is highly valued. Harris suggests that when game in an area becomes depleted, pressure rises to expand into the territory of neighboring groups, thus precipitating conflict. Such conflicts in turn result in high rates of adult male mortality. Combined with the effects of female infanticide, this meat-warfare complex keeps population growth rates down to a level that the environment can support.
A third view relies on historical data. Brian Ferguson (1990) argues that the high levels of violence among the Yanomami were caused by the intensified Western presence during the preceding 100 years. Furthermore, diseases introduced from outside, especially measles and malaria, severely depopulated the Yanomami and greatly increased their fears of sorcery (their explanation for disease). The attraction to Western goods such as steel axes and guns would also increase intergroup rivalry. Thus, Ferguson suggests that the “fierce people” are a creation of historical forces, especially contact with and pressure from outsiders.
Following Ferguson’s position, but with a new angle, journalist Patrick Tierney points the finger of blame at Chagnon himself (2000). Tierney maintains that it was the presence of Chagnon, with his team of coresearchers and many boxes of trade goods, that triggered a series of lethal raids due to increased competition for those very goods. In addition, Tierney argues that Chagnon intentionally prompted the Yanomami to act fiercely in his films and to stage raids that created aggravated intergroup hostility beyond what had originally existed. Political and legal anthropologists do important research on global–local political and legal connections and change. This section provides three examples of change.
Nations and Transnational Nations
Many different definitions exist for a nation, and some of them overlap with definitions given for a state. One definition says that a nation is a group of people who share a language, culture, territorial base, political organization, and history (Clay 1990). In this sense, a nation is culturally homogeneous, and the United States would be considered not a nation, but rather a political unit composed of many nations. According to this definition, groups that lack a territorial base cannot be termed nations. A related term is the nation–state, which some say refers to a state that comprises only one nation, whereas others think that it refers to a state that comprises many nations. An example of the first view is the Iroquois nation (see Map 3.2).
Depending on their resources and power, nations and other groups may constitute a political threat to state stability and control. Examples include the Kurds in the Middle East (see Culturama), the Maya of Mexico and Central America, Tamils in Sri Lanka, Tibetans in China, and Palestinians in the Middle East. In response to such nonstate local political movements, states seek to create and maintain a sense of unified identity. Political scientist Benedict Anderson, in his classic study Imagined Communities (1991 [1983]), writes about the symbolic efforts that state builders employ to create a sense of belonging—an “imagined community”—among diverse peoples. Strategies include the imposition of one language as the national language; the construction of monuments and museums that emphasize unity; and the use of songs, dress, poetry, and other media messages to promote an image of a unified country. Some states, such as China, control religious expression in the interest of promoting loyalty to and identity with the state.
Globalization and increased international migration also prompt anthropologists to rethink the concept of the state (Trouillot 2001). The case of Puerto Rico (Map 8.4) is particularly illuminating because of its continuing status as a quasi-colony of the United States (Duany 2000). Puerto Rico is neither fully a state of the United States nor an autonomous political unit with its own national identity. Furthermore, Puerto Rican people do not coexist in a bounded spatial territory. By the late 1990s, nearly as many Puerto Ricans lived in the U.S. mainland as on the island of Puerto Rico. Migration to Puerto Rico also occurs, creating cultural diversity there. Migrants include returning Puerto Ricans and others from the United States, such as Dominicans and Cubans.
In 2001, the American Anthropological Association established a task force to examine five topics related to Tierney’s allegations that Chagnon’s and others’ interactions with and representations of the Yanomami may have had a detrimental impact on them, contributing to “disorganization” among the Yanomami. The report of the El Dorado Task Force appears on the website http://www.aaanet.org of the American Anthropological Association. The task force rejected all charges against Chagnon and instead emphasized the harmfulness of false accusations that might jeopardize future scientific research.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. • Which perspective presented here on Yanomami men’s behavior is most persuasive to you and why?
2. • What relevance does this case have to the theory that violence is a universal human trait?
3. • Do you think anthropological research could lead to increased violence among the study population?
Napoleon Chagnon in the field with two Yanomami men, 1995. Chagnon distributed goods such as steel axes and tobacco to the Yanomami to gain their cooperation in his research.
Journal 8.2 Critical Thinking: Several Views on Yanomami Men’s Behavior
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Anthropology Works
Advocacy Anthropology and Community Activism in Papua New Guinea
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A controversial issue in applied anthropology is whether or not an anthropologist should take on the role of community activist on behalf of the people among whom they have conducted research (Kirsch 2002). Some say that anthropologists should maintain a neutral position in a conflict situation and simply offer information that may be used by either side. Others say that it is appropriate and right for anthropologists to take sides and help support less powerful groups against more powerful groups. Those who endorse anthropologists taking an activist role argue that neutrality is never truly neutral: By seemingly taking no position, one indirectly supports the status quo. Information provided to both sides will serve the interests of the more powerful side.
Stuart Kirsch took an activist role after conducting field research for over 15 years in a region of Papua New Guinea that has been negatively affected by a large copper and gold mine called the Ok Tedi (aak teddy) mine (see Map 1.2). The mine released 80,000 tons of mining wastes into the local river system daily, causing extensive environmental damage that in turn damaged local people’s food and water sources. Kirsch joined the community in its extended legal and political campaign to limit further pollution and to gain compensation for damages suffered.
He explains his involvement with the community as a form of reciprocal exchange. The community members have provided him with information about their culture for many years. He believes that his knowledge is part of the people’s cultural property and that they have a rightful claim to its use. Kirsch’s support of the community’s goals has taken three forms:
· Providing documentation of the problems of the people living downstream from the mine in terms of their ability to make a living and their health.
· Working with local leaders to help them to convey their views to the public and in the court.
· Serving as a cultural broker, a person familiar with two cultures who can mediate and prevent conflicts, in discussions among community members, politicians, mining executives, lawyers, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote solutions for the problems faced by the Ok Tedi people living downstream from the mine.
In spite of official reports recommending that the mine be closed in 2001, its future remains uncertain. No assessment of past damages to the community has been prepared. As the case goes on, Kirsch continues to support the community’s efforts. Indigenous people worldwide are increasingly invoking their rights to anthropological knowledge about themselves.
According to Kirsch, the Ok Tedi case, along with many others, requires cultural anthropologists to rethink their roles and relationships with the people they study. Gone is old-fashioned fieldwork in which community members provide information that the anthropologist records and then keeps for his or her intellectual development alone. The overall goal must be one of collaboration and cooperation and, often, the anthropologist serving as an advocate for the people.
Thanks to Stuart Kirsch, University of Michigan, for providing updates.
Food for Thought
Consider the pros and cons of anthropological advocacy in terms of the Ok Tedi case or another issue: Should an anthropologist side with the local people with whom he or she has done research against a powerful outside force? If the anthropologist does not side with the local people, is that equivalent to siding with the outsiders? The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory with commonwealth status. The indigenous population of the island, the Tainos, is extinct. Analysis of DNA of current inhabitants of Puerto Rico reveals a mixed ancestry, including the Taino, Spanish colonialists, and Africans who came to the island as slaves. The economy is based on agriculture, and sugarcane is the main crop. Tourism is also important, as are remittances. Official languages are Spanish and English. Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion, although Protestantism is increasing.
These migration streams—outgoing and incoming—pose a dual complication to the sense of Puerto Rico as constituting a nation. First, half of the “nation” lives outside the home territory. Second, within the home territory, ethnic homogeneity does not exist because of the diversity of people who migrate there. The Puerto Ricans who are return migrants are different from the islanders because many have adopted English as their primary language. All these processes foster the emergence of a transnational identity, which differs from a national identity centered in either the United States or Puerto Rico. (Chapter 12 provides additional material on transnationalism.)
Democratization
Democratization is the process of transformation from an authoritarian regime to a democratic regime. This process includes several features: the end of torture, the liberation of political prisoners, the lifting of censorship, and the toleration of some opposition (Pasquino 1996). In some cases, what is achieved is more a relaxation of authoritarianism than a true transition to democracy, which would occur when the authoritarian regime is no longer in control. Political parties emerge, some presenting traditional interests and others oppositional.
The transition to democracy appears to be most difficult when the change is from highly authoritarian socialist regimes. This pattern is partly explained by the fact that democratization implies a transition from a planned economy to one based on market capitalism (Lempert 1996). The spotty record of democratization efforts also has to do with the fact that many principles of democracy do not fit in with local political traditions that are based solely on kinship and patronage. The United Nations and International Peacekeeping
What role might cultural anthropology play in international peacekeeping? Robert Carneiro (1994) has a pessimistic response. Carneiro says that during the long history of human political evolution from bands to states, warfare has been the major means by which political units enlarged their power and domain. Foreseeing no logical end to this process, he predicts that war will follow war until superstates become ever larger and one mega-state is the final result. He considers the United Nations powerless in dealing with the principal obstacle to world peace: state sovereignty interests. Carneiro indicts the United Nations for its lack of coercive power and its record of having resolved disputes through military intervention in only a few cases.
If war is inevitable, little hope exists that anthropological knowledge can be applied to peacemaking efforts. Nonetheless, and despite Carneiro’s views, cultural anthropologists have shown that war is not a cultural universal and that some cultures solve disputes without resorting to war. The cultural anthropological perspective of critical cultural relativism (review this concept in Chapter 1) can provide useful background on issues of conflict and prompt a deeper dialogue between parties.
Two positive points emerge. The United Nations at least affords an arena for airing disputes. International peace organizations may thus play a role in world peace and order by providing a forum for analysis of the interrelationships among world problems and by exposing the causes and consequences of violence. Another positive direction is the role of NGOs and grassroots organizations in promoting local and global peacemaking through initiatives that bridge group interests.