Contenu du sommaire : La violence

Shadows of Violence : Tahitian Riddles Contemporary tahitian community values the avoidance of conflict and the refusal of aggression between people. When facing situations appearing to be of «political» order, this model can sometimes seem to invert itself without being replaced by an explicit counter- model. These two possible models are briefly replaced in an historical context and confronted to the historical pattern generally adopted by the Tahitians themselves. This paper examines in what way the avoidance model, the ethic of consensus and gentleness are developped in the education and socialization of children, according to the observations of the ethno- psychiatrist R. I. Levy. And how they appear in the semantic logics of the adult world when dealing with conflict and hierarchy. It then describes three situations involving physical aggression.

Remarks on Violence in Buddhist Ideology and Social Practice in Sri Lanka Contrary to a common opinion, the Buddhist discourse on violence is essentially ambivalent. A casuistry built up during two milleniums of interaction with the lay society interprets violence as legitimate when used for the defense of the Doctrine, while condemning it in social relations inside the Buddhist polity. The history fo Sri Lanka is a case in point. The rise of violence, which is assuming a critical dimension in communal relations, may be understood as the product of the breakdown of traditional values under the colonial and post-colonial impact, or else as the modern form of the built-in tensions of any Buddhist society.

The Disdain of Death and the Corpse's Power. Defilement and Purification of a Lobi (Burkina) Among the Lobi of Burkina (Haute-Volta), the years 1920-1930 saw numerous armed conflicts (vengeance and wars). What were the factors that made them necessary in the social context ? What was the warrior's role ? Why did they have to be purified after the murder of an ennemi ? Violence, as a practice, was instilled in informal age sets. Its exercice established homicide brotherhoods, competing for courage and proudly distinguishing themselves from the rest of society. To kill even one's pure ennemi is defiling, comparable to the destruction of certain powerful animals or certain anciently known plants. These acts all require purification rituals and specific funerals. But the communal characteristics of social relationships, the equivalence and separation of the groups involved, lead to a strange reversal. The disdain of death is followed by fear of the corpse : real and imaginary vengeance coexist. And to eliminate one's opponent is to kill one's likeness.

Social Organization and Violence among the Yanomami-of Venezuela The Yanomami are a Venezuelan population of hunters practising slash-and-burn agriculture. In their practices and representations, violence is at the heart of social organization. The potential or effective use of violence, whether observable or not, contributes to a constant transformation of intra- and inter-community relations. Violence is used, particularly, to produce and/or maintain social and spatial distance between groups. In this study we examine the modalities and degrees of violence, in terms of capacity to resolve conflicts and as an agonistic conception of social relations. Inter-community warfare, which has characterized Yanomami society, is only one of several possible forms of violence : occult aggressions must also be considered. The various forms of aggression correspond to different levels of socio-political interaction. In this acephalous society, aggression appears to be a constitutive element of social structure. It offers an institutional guarantee of a symbolic relationship uniting both the members of a group and the different local groups.

Manifestations of Violence in Ammassalimiut Society (East Coast of Groenland) In the precarious balance of traditional Ammassalimiut society, this group had established social rules which reduced inequalities and minimized tensions within the community. In case of serious conflict, the group could arbitrate between the antagonists through a special ritual : the «duel of songs» performed by the latter. Contemporary society, in the midst of deep transformation, does not appear to have found means of controlling aggression, and in the past twenty years, internal violence has reached an alarming level.

The Making of Citizenship : the «Scandalous» Verdicts of not Guilty brought by the Jury in Early 19th Century France The trial proceedings set in the penal code of 1811 still valid today, although currently undergoing transformations, required a jury who, alone, had to decide of the guilt or innocence of the culprit in the Assize court, the judges being responsible for the sentence. According to the 19th century judges, the jury members tended to acquit too easily because they were linked to the culprit by the same representation — varying according to the area — of what is and what is not an offence. We can observe then on the judicial scene, a tension parallel to the one we see at the same period (after the Revolution) on the political scene between the particular — or particularist — interests and the general interest, this tension is expressed here by varying verdicts given by provincial law courts, and the legislator's will, to impose a unique and overall measure of equity on the national level. Thus, through the role of the jury is defined the central question in 19th century France : representativity.

Jury and Law in the 1 9th Century Lozère If, along the XlXth century, the Presidents of the Assize Court in Lozère denounce the excesses of criminal law when carried out by jurymen hardly disposed to comply with the legal limits of their duties, they reveals, along with the accounts of judges to the Justice Department, the strategy developed around different trials. They make it clear then that the new institution of jury action at court, carried on by the propertied classes only, brings the exercice of justice under such social influence as every crime is judged from a subjective point of view only. Therefore, the verdict is the result of findings based upon the social status of both the defendant and the victim and their social environment at large.

Social Tension in Picardie In the rural society of Picardie conflict relationships imply the agricultural workers who are not sure to find a job and to keep it, as well as class opponents. The atmosphere of tension which dominates in the farms is the result of the pressure exercised by the landlord-farmer who disposes of a powerful social violence, making himself the master of their fate. This can also be explained by the competition that exists between the workers able to distinguish themselves on a hierarchical scale based on behaviour at work and their ability to achieve more than the others. The analysis of their rather rich and precise vocabulary which defines the different working methods is put in relation with the morality of everyday life which underlines the importance of effort as the main objective value.

Silence as Violence in Traditional Sicily Omertà, or the law of silence, which we associate nowadays with the Mafia, was formerly a traditional peasant response to the violence they endured collectively or as individuals. The author underlines the reasons for the emergence of this peculiar form of aggression — «silence» — and its consequences on the antagonism between the peasants — «the berets» — and the landowners — «the hats» — with the help of six allegorical stories (parità) collected among the peasants of eastern Sicily by S. A. Guastella and published in 1884.

«To Fight like Dustbin-Rakers» «To fight like dustbin-rakers» is often used in French. Why is it so ? Why was violence associated with this group ? Fieldwork conducted near families of former rag-and-bone men, living in a neighbourhood of Nanterre (a suburb near Paris) until the 1950s, endeavours to explain this association. There was a professionnal violence when ragmen fought for the collecting spaces, and there was a domestic violence within instable households. However violence is not disorder : the business is quite structured and solidarity runs along the members of the group. One can wonder if, eventually, violence is not purely an external vision of the group.

On Genealogy Considered as a Murder How beautiful was the murder ! From provocative scheme laid down in T. de Quincey's On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts, this essay investigates the formula according to a couple of points of view : a literary one with an analysis of G. Büchner's drama Woyzeck and an anthropological one with an analysis of the Gevaudan's rural society in the 18th and 19th centuries. Both stage closely linked acts of violence from lowly or social outcasts who perpetrate them against their own relatives. Both alike seem to confirm the post-durkheimian «labelling» theory in crime, which asserts that societies somehow need their quotas of deviation and function in such a way as to keep them intact. The esthetical features of genealogical crimes which are observed here, let infer that murder in the family is nothing but a sacrifice.

On Landscape From some years, Landscape has raised a new social and scientific interest as demonstrated by the growing number of publications on this topic. Compared readings and analysis of work (books, publications and lectures) published between 1981 and 1984 in various fields of social sciences allow to give a survey of the diversity of the ways and methods used to approach the object «Landscape», and of their results. Drawing up this inventory also, reveals the remaining blanks and the ambiguousnesses to be clarified to investigate this cultural fact, both idea and reality.

Usury in the XlXth Century : a Real Pest in Rural Areas Usury is one of the components of rural life in the 19th century. As a form of economic violence, it remains a hidden social fact. Through archives, we can grasp the peasant vision of village communities of the Rambouillet district. The resort to a money-lender reveals the latter 's identity and risks undergone, it gives precisions on the extent and profits of this illicit trade. It shows the ambivalent attitudes of individuals and couples, stresses their outcome and testifies of the rivalry between town and country.

The Use of Dogs in Sheepherding in North and South America On the American continent the use of dogs in sheepherding is ancient but has evolved variably depending on regions and periods. In more recent years the problem was centered in the United States on finding a safe, cheap and ecological way of containing coyotes. Today a new type of guard dog is used to watch over and protect flocks in fenced off sheep-ranges. In the La Plata region in South America sheepdogs were introduced quite early — late 18th century — to herd alone sheep and goats all over the range and especially in the vicinity of the farms.