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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Signifying The Place Of Unforgettable Memory: Atrocity And Trauma In A Post-Conflict Landscape, Ralph J. Hartley
Signifying The Place Of Unforgettable Memory: Atrocity And Trauma In A Post-Conflict Landscape, Ralph J. Hartley
Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications
After active inter-group lethal violence subsides places at which atrocities occurred are often assigned significance, reflecting an altered social topography influenced by ideology that may foster the hardening of socio-ethnic boundary distinctions. While using a comparativist approach, this paper explores the relationships between socio-cultural trauma, places of atrocity, and socio-political polarization. Two sites in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, where highly publicized massacres occurred, illustrate the power of place significance in social environments vulnerable to flare-ups of violent conflict.
Cattle, Co-Wives, Children, And Calabashes: Material Context For Symbol Use Among The Il Chamus Of West-Central Kenya, Alan J. Osborn
Cattle, Co-Wives, Children, And Calabashes: Material Context For Symbol Use Among The Il Chamus Of West-Central Kenya, Alan J. Osborn
Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications
This paper examines systemic contexts for symbol use among the Maa-speaking Il Chamus in the Lake Baringo region of west-central Kenya. The systemic context for symbols and material culture consists of the environmental constraints and behavioral responses that characterize pastoralist life in East Africa. The author's interest in this problem developed in response to Ian Hodder’s work among the Il Chamus, Pokot, and Tugen in the Baringo District. Unlike Hodder, however, the author argues that symbols and their use in East Africa can be more productively explained from a materialist perspective. Specifically, it is proposed that symbols affixed to certain …