Terror and Violence: Imagination and the Unimaginable (Anthropology, Culture and Society) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745323995 ISBN 13: 9780745323992

Publisher: Pluto Press, 2005

Synopsis

What is terror? What are its roots and its results -- and what part does it play in human experience and history? This volume offers a number of timely and original anthropological insights into the ways in which acts of terror -- and reactions to those acts -- impact on the lives of virtually everyone in the world today, as perpetrators, victims or witnesses.

As the contributors to this volume demonstrate, what we have come to regard as acts of terror -- whether politically motivated, or state-sanctioned -- have assumed many different forms and provoked widely differing responses throughout the world.

At a deeper level, the contributors explore the work of the imagination in extreme contexts of danger, such as those of terror and terrorism. By stressing the role of the imagination, and its role in amplifying the effects of experience, this collection brings together a coherent set of analyses that offer innovative and unexpected ways of understanding a major global problem of contemporary life.

About this title

Review:

The editors, Andrew Strathern and Pamela Stewart, set out the aim of this collection of essays. They go on to define 'terror', 'terrorism', and 'terrorist'. There is a certain world wide sameness to police terrorism 'abduction; detention without trial; no records kept of arrest or detention; torture and extrajudicial execution, the latter covering both deaths in custody and killings in false encounters... These cases show that terror was essentially about having no redress either through the courts or through persons occupying positions of influence. (Rene Wadlow, Transnational Perspectives)

timely, sophisticated and original (Hastings Donnan, Queen’s Belfast)

Synopsis:

What is terror? What are its roots and its results - and what part does it play in human experience and history? This volume offers a timely and original anthropological insight into the ways in which acts of terror - and reactions to those acts - impact on the lives of virtually everyone in the world today, as perpetrators, victims or observers. Since the destruction of the twin towers, terror has been defined very largely in the public mind in terms of Islamic fundamentalism, but as contributors to this volume demonstrate, what we have come to regard as acts of terror - whether politically motivated, or state-sanctioned - have assumed many different forms and provoked wildly differing responses throughout the world. This collection brings together new ways of thinking about violence and terror in a coherent analysis that encourages fresh insights and offers a genuinely new way of understanding the social processes of terrorism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0745323995
• ISBN 13: 9780745323992
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Strathern Andrew, Stewart Pamela J., Whitehead Neil L.