Torture by Cieng: Ethical Theory Meets Social Practice among the Dinka Agaar of South Sudan

Abstract

Here I detail violence in South Sudan by first discussing a specific Dinka Agaar practice alongside existing discourses on the social aspects of violence and universal human rights, then I show how these acts had meaning and purpose using data from personal accounts of violence. I posit that the violence described was consistent with Dinka Agaar concepts of justice and basic human rights and that it cannot be judged against any universal human rights standard, devoid of local context or of an overarching metanarrative. These events highlight conflicting subjectivities, ethical norms, and the painful difficulties inherent to advocacy in areas of conflict. Viewed from the perspective of the larger social unit, it is easy to see how violence was required to end violence. However, witnessing punitive violence purposefully enacted on innocent individuals to achieve peace has the potential to create conflicting positions that modern anthropological discourse cannot reconcile.

Unexpected Properties: Strathern on the Relation of Law and Culture

“…There is no single anthropological position on these issues; even a summary reading yields a sense of intractable debate (Clarke, 2009;Goodale, 2009;Goodale and Clarke, 2010;Merry, 2006;Wilson, 2011;Strathern, 2005: 130-2, 193). In some contexts, accounts of human rights prosecutions seem to give back to anthropology a nightmare version of its own concepts, tacitly equating cultural difference with rights deficit (for example, see Archambault, 2011;Deal, 2010) -although this is not to deny horrific circumstances and their challenges to knowledge. But fusing culture and (deviant) law is characteristic of a version of cultural relativism -one that marks cultural difference and legal difference with one conceptual stroke, relative to presumptively global norms.…”

Družbeni vidiki zlorabe in nasilja: teoretske podlage za svetovalce v izobraževanju odraslih

“…V družboslovju in antropologiji obstajata vsaj dva pristopa k raziskovanju nasilja. Na nekatere pristope bolj vplivajo študije človekovih pravic (Handwerker, 1996;Deal, 2010;Merry, 2006), drugi pa so bolj pod vplivom spoznanj psihologov, psihoterapevtov, zdravnikov, raziskovalcev s področja javnega zdravstva ter drugih strokovnjakov (Dube in drugi, 2002). Obema paradigmama je skupno, da nasilje vidita kot družbeno težavo ne glede na to, ali so žrtve nasilja in zlorabe posamezniki ali določene skupine (etnične ali spolne skupine, begunci, migranti).…”

“…Sistemi organiziranega kolektivnega nasilja so usidrani v različnih ideologijah sovražnosti: rasizmu in psevdosociološkem pojmu »kulturne« manjvrednosti Judov, Romov, homoseksualcev, storilcev kaznivih dejanj, slovanskih narodov itd. ; v novih protipriseljenskih in rasističnih gibanjih evropske in ameriške »desnice«; v komunizmu in protikomunizmu kot močnih ideologijah, ki sta podpirali sovražnost in strukturno nasilje v obdobju hladne vojne; v nekaterih političnih režimih v Sudanu v Afriki (Deal, 2010), ki so legitimizirali zlorabo moči nad civilisti; v »doktrini nacionalne varnosti« v Latinski Ameriki, ki je legitimizirala nasilno delovanje generalov; v verskih zapisih, ki gojijo ideologijo sovražnosti do Judov kot »Jezusovih morilcev«. Pogosto ti sistemi temeljijo na intelektualni indoktrinaciji (Suárez-Orozco in Robben, 2000).…”

Anthropology Becoming … ? The 2010 Sociocultural Anthropology Year in Review

“…In a very different cultural context, Jeffrey Deal (2010) writes about conflicting rights discourses and local justice. Deal analyzes violence perpetuated by the Dinka Agaar in South Sudan.…”