Death squad: the anthropology of state terror

Jeffrey A Sluka

University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000 - Social Science - 260 pages

"There is real personal danger for anthropologists who dare to speak and write against terror; by doing so, they potentially and sometimes actually bring the terror down on themselves."—Jeffrey A. Sluka, from the Introduction

Death Squad is the first work to focus specifically on the anthropology of state terror. It brings together an international group of anthropologists who have done extensive research in areas marked by extreme forms of state violence and who have studied state terror from the perspective of victims and survivors.

The book presents eight case studies from seven countries—Spain, India (Punjab and Kashmir), Argentina, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Indonesia, and the Philippines—to demonstrate the cultural complexities and ambiguities of terror when viewed at the local level and from the participants' point of view. Contributors deal with such topics as the role of Loyalist death squads in the culture of terror in Northern Ireland, the three-tier mechanism of state terror in Indonesia, the complex role of religion in violence by both the state and insurgents in Punjab and Kashmir, and the ways in which "disappearances" are used to destabilize and demoralize opponents of the state in Argentina, Guatemala, and India.

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Review: Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror

User Review  - Theresa - Goodreads

So the low rating on this one is primarily because it has a really limited audience. It's a compilation of works done by anthropologists to chronicle incidences of state terror and violence from an ...

Contents

• State Terror and Anthropology: 1
• A Fictional Reality Paramilitary Death Squads and the Construction of State Terror in Spain: 46
• Trials by Fire Dynamics of Terror in Punjab and Kashmir: 70
• State Terror in the Netherworld Disappearance and Reburial in Argentina: 91
• The Homogenizing Effects of StateSponsored Terrorism The Case of Guatemala: 114
• For God and Ulster The Culture of Terror and Loyalist Death Squads in Northern Ireland: 127
• Ninjas Nanggalas Monuments and Mossad Manuals An Anthropology of Indonesian State Terror in East Timor: 158
• Murdered or Martyred? Popular Evaluations of Violent Death in the Muslim Separatist Movement in the Philippines: 189
• Parents and Their Children in Situations of Terror Disappearances and Special Police Activity in Punjab: 204
• Death Squads and Wider Complicities Dilemmas for the Anthropology of Violence: 226
• Contributors: 249
• Index: 251

About the author

Jeffrey A. Sluka is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology at Massey University in New Zealand. He is the author of Hearts and Minds, Water and Fish: Popular Support for the IRA and INLA in a Northern Irish Ghetto.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Death squad: the anthropology of state terror; Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror, Jeffrey A. Sluka; The Ethnography of Political Violence
• Editor: Jeffrey A Sluka
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000
• ISBN: 081221711X, 9780812217117
• Length: 260 pages
• Subjects: Political Science / Human Rights; Political Science / Terrorism; Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural; Social Science / Anthropology / General; Social Science / Human Services