Fraternity and Terror: The Organization of Violence in Everyday Life

This paper was inspired by participant observation in the Coalfields towns of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. It is an attempt to demonstrate the significance of violence in the political practice of coal-miners. This significance has been overlooked in the recent enthusiasm for studies of ‘dominant ideologies’. Beyond this, the paper is an attempt to theorize the role of routine violence in the formation, maintenance and dissolution of social groups. The processes of group formation are an important subject for any theory of political practice.     

Negotiating Dangerous Fields: Pragmatic Strategies for Fieldwork amid Violence and Terror

As anthropology turns toward the cultural issues of the 21 st century, more and more ethnographic fieldwork is and will continue to be conducted in regions fraught with conflict, instability, and terror. Despite a growing literature that seeks to develop new theories and perspectives for the study of violence, little mention is made of the practical matters of survival in perilous field sites and how the anthropologist's experience of violence in the field should be considered. What is needed is a pragmatic strategy for dealing with threats to the safety, security, and well-being of anthropologists and informants who work amid the menace of violence. Drawing on my own fieldwork in Haiti, I suggest the adoption of new tactics for ethnographic research and survival in dangerous fields—strategies that challenge the conventional ethics of the discipline, reconfigure the relationship between anthropologist and informant, and compel innovation in negotiating the exchange of data under hazardous circumstances. [Keywords: fieldwork, violence, methodology, ethics, Haiti]     

Genetic diversity,population structure and subdivision of local Balkan pig breeds in Austria,Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and its practical value in conservation programs

Background

At present the Croatian Turopolje pig population comprises about 157 breeding animals. In Austria, 324 Turopolje pigs originating from six Croatian founder animals are registered. Multiple bottlenecks have occurred in this population, one major one rather recently and several more older and moderate ones. In addition, it has been subdivided into three subpopulations, one in Austria and two in Croatia, with restricted gene flow. These specificities explain the delicate situation of this endangered Croatian lard-type pig breed.

Methods

In order to identify candidate breeding animals or gene pools for future conservation breeding programs, we studied the genetic diversity and population structure of this breed using microsatellite data from 197 individuals belonging to five different breeds.

Results

The genetic diversity of the Turopolje pig is dramatically low with observed heterozygosities values ranging from 0.38 to 0.57. Split into three populations since 1994, two genetic clusters could be identified: one highly conserved Croatian gene pool in Turopoljski Lug and the"Posavina" gene pool mainly present in the Austrian population. The second Croatian subpopulation in Lonjsko Polje in the Posavina region shows a constant gene flow from the Turopoljski Lug animals.

Conclusions

One practical conclusion is that it is necessary to develop a "Posavina" boar line to preserve the "Posavina" gene pool and constitute a corresponding population in Croatia. Animals of the highly inbred herd in Turopoljski Lug should not be crossed with animals of other populations since they represent a specific phenotype-genotype combination. However to increase the genetic diversity of this herd, a program to optimize its sex ratio should be carried out, as was done in the Austrian population where the level of heterozygosity has remained moderate despite its heavy bottleneck in 1994.     

Conservation gains through HCVF assessments in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Romania

This paper analyses the conservation gains through High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF) assessments in two South-East European countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina and Romania). These are based on the review of the Draft Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) National Standards and HCVF Manuals and the results of the certification process of seven forest management units in the two countries. The review indicates that the application of Principle 9 (High Conservation Value Forests) and Criterion 6.4 of the FSC in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Romania was influenced by the size and nature of tenure (i.e., public or non-public land), rather than geographic location per se. The study also revealed that the assessment of HCVF has, for the first time, raised the question of conservation of cultural, historical and religious values as well as the sustainable management of those forests relevant for the basic needs of communities. These are values not currently covered at the present by the national conservation legislation in either of these two countries. Findings of this study in both countries demonstrates that there are certain conservation gains as a result of the HCVF assessment, especially related to ecosystem services, prevention of soil erosion and conservation of threatened, endangered and endemic species.     

The Privatisation of Home and Hope: Return, Reforms and the Foreign Intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Contextualising the foreign-imposed return policies in early post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article argues that the return of the displaced – however important it was to many Bosnians – ultimately functioned as the self-perpetuating lynchpin of an externally generated framework for post-war reconstruction, often out of tune with the hopes of its intended beneficiaries. Rather than following conventional anthropological cultural relativist arguments, I propose a critique of the foreign intervention that places it in its social, political and economic context, drawing attention to patterns of longing and belonging in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I contrast the groundings and implications of intervention policies with the experiences and yearnings of displaced Bosnians and show that, while it was legitimised as the implementation of an ostensibly ideologically neutral human rights discourse, the foreign emphasis on property and safety rights over other concerns channelled the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina into a peculiar, normative trajectory of postsocialist neoliberalisation.     

Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse

Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse. Mary Bucholtz. A. C. Liang. and Laurel Sutton. eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 431 pp.     

Gendered Missions: Women and Men in Missionary Discourse and Practice

Gendered Missions: Women and Men in Missionary Discourse and Practice. Mary Taylor Huber and Nancy C. Lutkehaus. eds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. 252 pp.