The American Newness

Creating the Appearance of Consensus in Mende Political Discourse

“…In meetings, social actors explicitly reproduce and articulate the social order. A meeting thus shares the special analytical significance noted by Turner (1957:93) for social dramas generally: "a limited area of transparency in the otherwise opaque surface of regular, uneventful social life:" Recent anthropological research has variously delineated the analytical value of studying meetings (e.g., Bailey 1965;Frake 1972;Howe 1986;Myers 1986;Richards and Kuper 1971;Schwartzman 1987Schwartzman , 1989, exemplifying one major shift in social theory from the group (and its institutional structure) as the basic unit of analysis to the focused gatherings of group activity (see also Goffman 1961:7-14).…”

“…One conclusion in the political anthropology of strategic conduct is that the appearance rather than the actuality of consensus may be more fundamental to the political order (e.g., Bailey 1965; Moore 1977). Similarly, recent analyses of political oratory show that conflict is often veiled in public discourse by consensual or indirect language (e.g., Brenneis 1984Brenneis , 1987Howe 1986;Myers 1986;Pinsker 1989;Rosaldo 1973;Strathern 1975) as well as relegated to less public discussions (e.g., Salmond 1975). Legal anthropology has identified a related principle with the distinction between "open" and "closed" arenas of dispute processing (Yngvesson and Mather 1983).…”