Dead Certainty: Ethnic Violence in the Era of Globalization

This article explores the links between globalization and ethnic violence in comparative perspective. By looking at ethnographic material from Central Africa, Europe, India and China, the paper suggests that bodily violence between social intimates may be viewed as a form of vivisection, and as an e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Development and change 1998-10, Vol.29 (4), p.905-925
Main Author: Appadurai, Arjun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
AFRICA
Central Africa
China
CHINA IN GENERAL
CONTEMPORARY EUROPE
Deconstruction
Ethnicity
ETHNICITY AND ETHNIC GROUPS
Ethnography
Europe
Everyday life
Globalism
Globalization
GLOBALIZATION, ON A GLOBAL SCALE
INDIA
Interethnic conflict
Intimacy
Uncertainty
Violence
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Summary:This article explores the links between globalization and ethnic violence in comparative perspective. By looking at ethnographic material from Central Africa, Europe, India and China, the paper suggests that bodily violence between social intimates may be viewed as a form of vivisection, and as an effort to resolve unacceptable levels of uncertainty through bodily deconstruction. This approach may cast light on the surplus of rage displayed in many recent episodes of inter‐group violence. At the same time, the study suggests that the conditions for such extreme and intimate violence may partly lie in the deformation of national and local spaces of everyday life by the physical and moral pressures of globalization.
ISSN:0012-155X
1467-7660
DOI:10.1111/1467-7660.00103