American Ethnologist: Vol. 31, No. 2

Editor's Foreword -- AE 31(2)

‘‘Culpability,’’ ‘‘Desire,’’ and ‘‘Discourse’’ are the headings I have given the three article groupings in this issue of AE. "Culpability," "Desire," and "Discourse" are the headings I have given the three article groupings in this issue of AE. Through them, I mean to evoke powerful connections I believe readers will find worth making as they read the selections in each section. Of course, each article is but an entry point to debates and explorations that draw many of us in from different angles and different regional or topical expertise. Each, however, seems especially timely as I write this foreword in March 2004.  read more »

Abstracts -- AE 31(2)


Culpability

Toward an anthropology of culpability
Nandini Sundar
Anthropologists concerned with political violence and justice must engage in a comparative examination of culpability for past and ongoing crimes. When powerful states use reparations, truth commissions, or war crime tribunals to attribute culpability to others, including their past selves, they often, paradoxically, legitimize ongoing injustices. As against culturalist explanations for mass violence, which set up a hierarchy of cultures, we need to look at the institutional sites through which public morality is constructed. This approach is illustrated with reference to the killing of Muslims in Gujarat, India, in 2002 and to the invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003. [culpability, comparative anthropology, reparations, genocide, war, India, United States]  read more »

Table of Contents -- AE 31(2)

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