Violence et ordre social dans une société amazonienne. Les Yanomami du Vénézuela

Abstract

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.