1. The
Meanings
of Violence

2. Social Proximity
We often attribute conflict between individuals and
groups to growing contrasts or cleavages between
them. The larger the economic, cultural and social
differences; the greater the chance for violent
confrontations.
But if we are to consider generating a body of theory
about violence and power, it is hard to ignore that
struggles often take place between communities that
differ very little — or between communities between
which differences have diminished.
History shows us that some of the most bloody and
terrible conflicts are civil wars or „internecine‟
struggles. The archetypes are the biblical brothers
Cane and Abel—hence the metaphor of fratricide.

3. Freud
• Let‟s start with Freud, not
with Marx, who believed that
the class struggle necessary
for change in society could
only develop when the
schism between workers and
owners were INCREASED
• Freud was one of the first to
recognise the importance of
minor differences.
• Freud coined the phrase “the
narcissism of minor
differences.

4. Freud: The Narcissism of Minor
Differences
The first time Freud discusses the
„narcissism of minor differences‟ is in
his essay The Taboo of Virginity (1917).
―…this ‗narcissism of minor differences‘, the
hostility which in every human relationship we
see fighting successfully against feelings of
fellowship and overpowering the
commandment that all men should love one
another‖

5. Freud continues…
Some years later, Freud brings this issue
up again…
―Of two neighbouring towns, each is the
other‘s most jealous rival; every little
canton looks down upon the others with
contempt.‖ also, ―the South German
cannot endure the North German, the
Englishman casts every kind of
aspersion upon the Scot, the Spaniard
despises the Portuguese‖

6. The narcissism of minor differences
• Recall Leach‟s observation that “The more
similar the general pattern of two communities,
the more critical will be the significance which is
attached to minor points of reversal”.
• The ethnographic literature on violent conflict in
African societies suggests that violent
confrontations usually take place in close
circles, between close neighbours, friends or
relatives—in short, between peoples who share
many social and cultural features.
• Exchange and war can sometimes be seen as

7. The Nuer and the Dinka
NORTHERN NILOTES 100 km.
NORTHERN OTHER
DINKA NUER
LUO
The Nuer are closer, culturally, to the Dinka than
to any other group in the region.

8. The Nuer and the Dinka
The Nuer feel closer to the Dinka than
to other groups of strangers. They
fought together in the SPLA and often
speak of each other as cousins. At the
same time, the Nuer show greater
hostility toward the Dinka than toward
other strangers.
―The nearer people are to the Nuer in
mode of livelihood, language, and
customs, the more intimately the Nuer
regard them, the more easily they enter
into relations of hostility with them and
the more easily they fuse with
them…Nuer make war against a people
who have a culture like their own‖ – Evans-
Pritchard.

9. Pierre Bourdieu
« Ce sont les plus proches qui nous font mal »
— Pierre Bourdieu
Bourdieu emphasizes the
importance of minor differences
for the formation and maintenance
of identity and the threat to
identity that comes from what is
closest…

10. Rwanda: The narcissism of minor
differences?
Tutsi and Hutu speak the same
BANTU language, have the same
religion, followed the same cultural
practices (polygyny), eat the same
food, work the same
land, intermarry, etc.
Gravel, who did his work in the
1960s noted that the blurring of
ethnic lines that Maquet had
observed in the early twentieth
century had become even more
pronounced:
“Although the social system tends to keep
the poor Tutsi out of poverty, either by
helping them out or making them Hutu, there
are many Tutsi of low rank and low status in
every community”
Conversely, well-to-do Hutu could
be „Tutsi-ised‟

11. Why such extreme violence?
We can look at the Rwanda crisis purely from an
„instrumental‟ perspective.
That this event happened for a variety of
reasons:
• Colonial and foreign misrepresentations of
ethnic interaction
• Drought, ecological change and consequent
government policies
• Regional migration
But is this enough?
Surely, we need to find some other way to
account for the shear brutality and application of
terror at such an intimate level: neighbours killing

12. Bourdieu‟s Point
Social identity lies
in difference;
difference is
established, reinf
orced and
defended against
what is closest—
and what is
closest (in several
senses of the
word) represents

13. Violence always has a meaning
• The cultural dimensions of violence — its
idiom, discourse and meaning receive little
attention.
• Most historians, political scientists and also
anthropologists seem to focus on the
„utilitarian‟ or „instrumental‟ elements of
violence — in terms of means and ends.
• Rather than an a priori categorization of
violence as senseless or
irrational, consider it as a form of

14. Violence and its meanings
Anthropologists have found it useful to
distinguish between instrumental or technical
versus ritual, symbolic, communicative
aspects of human behaviour.
Some actions are more laden with meaning
than others. Pulling a bucket of water from
the well or making a pot of coffee are actions
with minimal symbolic import
It would be wrong to ignore the symbolism
embedded in overt acts of violence — both
individual and communal.

15. Violence and its meanings
The use of some kinds of violence must be
understood primarily in terms of symbolic
action
Although violence may have specific ends:
say, the killing of an opponent, we cannot
understand events such as Rwanda or Darfur
solely in these terms—There are more
efficient ways of destroying opposition.

16. Violence and its meanings
Ritualisation characterises a number of different acts
of violence.
Consider:
• The killing of the Ya-Na among the Dagomba in
Ghana
• Special names for opponents which serve to remove
moral responsibility for killing fellows: „cockroaches‟
for Tutsi in Rwanda
• The targeted use of rape in Darfurian Muslim society
to shame whole communities and families
Violence is a historically developed cultural category
which needs to be understood as something more
than just a means to an end: Violence itself is social