Paul Richards, ed. No Peace, No War: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts. Athens: Ohio University Press/Oxford: James Currey, 2005. x + 214 pp. Appendix. References. Bibliography. Index. $49.95. Cloth. $24.95. Paper.

Abstract

Paul Richards, ed. No Peace, No War: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts. Athens: Ohio University Press/Oxford: James Currey, 2005. x + 214 pp. Appendix. References. Bibliography. Index. $49.95. Cloth. $24.95. Paper. In one of rare photo-ops from Ituri zone, couple of militias crouch before camera. In front of them ground are heads of their enemies. One man has placed his left hand one of heads to make it face camera, while right one is holding severed arm by hand, as moved to offer last handshake to his victim. Next to him is another militia man holding gun in one hand and in other forearm hacked off at elbow. He holds it close to his nose, as tangle of blood-stained ligaments, tendons, and pieces of flesh are bunch of flowers. In another scene four human heads are neatly aligned ground. Huddled over these trophies are other militias, all holding AK47s, except one, whose hands are holding to his mouth large chunk of freshly cut human flesh, ready to be eaten. Are such chilling scenes to be treated as evidence of Robert D. Kaplan's new barbarism? Or sinister incarnation of Malthus with gun? Or do they reflect perverse effects of greed versus creed dialectic? None of above, suggests Paul Richards in opening chapter of this rich collection of case studies. War, he tells us, must be seen as a social process, and if we are to understand and in processual terms we must first comprehend practices of and peace: how people mobilize and organize for war, and role played by ideational factors in such mobilization and organization. The emphasis, therefore, must not be triggered but on exploring how people make and peace (13). The Ituri photos, in word, need to be contextualized. The book is testament to quality of research done at Department of Cultural Anthropology of University of Uppsala, until recently under guidance of late Bernhard Helander, to whose memory this volume is dedicated. Seven of ten contributors are either Uppsala Ph.D.s or faculty of same department. The case studies cover wide gamut: six are from Africa (Burkina Faso, Somalia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Zimbabwe), two from Asia (Cambodia and Tibet), one from Latin America (Guatemala), and another from Europe (Bosnia). For bringing such diverse cases into coherent theoretical frame editor deserves full credit. Best known for his classic work Sierra Leone, Fighting for Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone (1996), Paul Richards offers brilliant critique of some of most influential explanations of African conflicts in introductory chapter to this book. He successfully demolishes Malthusian theories, delivers coup de grâce to Kaplan's long moribund new barbarism thesis, and goes to tackle Paul Collier's greed not grievance theory. The nub of his critique is as straightforward as it is convincing: [Collier's] analysis shows that internal wars are more likely where mineral wealth combines with poverty, and where there is high unemployment among young men with limited education, but (perversely) he considers neither circumstance grounds for valid grievance. As he goes to note: This seems very odd to anyone with on-the-ground knowledge of youth activism against oil companies in Niger Delta or rebels facing mercenary-backed kimberlite concession holders in Sierra Leone. Why it is 'greedy' to want basic education or job Collier does not explain (10). Richards makes no effort to offer an alternative etiology of warfare. His aim is to sketch outlines of what he calls the ethnographic perspective. Drawing from B. M. Knauft's discussion of Melanesian warfare, he rejects single-factor explanations, while emphasizing fact that war belongs within society and must therefore be seen as an aspect of social process where boundary between and is blurred and periodically renegotiated. …