Yuyanapaq no entra: ritual dimensions of post‐transitional justice in Peru

The anthropology of transitional justice has emphasized the ritual aspects of truth commissions but offered less analysis of the conventions through which narratives produced by such institutions come to be viewed over time. A controversy in Peru that centred on a new national museum's possible incorporation of a photo exhibit (Yuyanapaq) created by the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2001‐3) provides an opportunity to explore this problematic. Documenting the disagreements that ultimately led to Yuyanapaq's exclusion from the museum, I suggest that an emphasis on ritual outcomes – including perceived shortcomings and failures – is useful for understanding the long‐term trajectory of national reconciliation initiatives.     

Reconciliation and Revenge in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Rethinking Legal Pluralism and Human Rights

Human rights are a central element in the new governmental project in the new South Africa, and this article traces some of the specific forms of connection and disconnection between notions of justice found in townships of the Vaal and rights discourses as articulated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The introduction of human rights in post-apartheid South Africa has had varied social effects. Religious values and human rights discourse have converged on the notion of reconciliation on the basis of shared value orientations and institutional structures. There are clear divergences, however, between human rights ideas and the notions of justice expressed in local lekgotla, or township courts, which emphasize punishment and retribution. The article concludes that the plurality of legal orders in South Africa results not from systemic relations between law and society but from multiple forms of social action seeking to alter the direction of social change in the area of justice within the context of the nation-building project of the post-apartheid state.     

Bodily rights and collective claims: the work of legal activists in interpreting reproductive and maternal rights in India

This article engages with anthropological approaches to the study of global human rights discourses around reproductive and maternal health in India. Whether couched in the language of human rights or of other social justice frameworks, different forms of claims‐making in India exist in tandem and correspond to particular traditions of activism and struggle. Universal reproductive rights language remains a discourse aimed at the state in India, where the primary purpose is to demand greater accountability in the domain of policy and governance. Outside of these spheres, other languages are strategically chosen by activists for their greater resonance in addressing individual cases of women claiming reproductive violence within the context of the family as well as localized histories of feminist struggle and social justice. In focusing on the work of legal activists and the discourses which inform their interventions, this article seeks to understand how the language of reproductive rights is used in the context of India, not as a `Western import' which is adapted to local contexts, but rather as one of multiple frameworks of claims‐making drawn upon by legal activists emerging from distinct histories of struggle for gender equality and social justice.     

Perpetration,impunity, and irreconciliation in Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools

The influence of institutional mandates on knowledge can be seen particularly clearly in the preferences and absences of truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) proceedings. A recent trend in TRCs involves a shift away from the exercise of judicial powers and the quest for justice and towards more concern with affirming the experience of victims or ‘Survivors’. Canada's TRC on Indian Residential Schools illustrates the consequences of the shift towards victim-centrism, which left gaps in knowledge – particularly about perpetrators – that was conveyed to the commission and produced conditions of impunity for those responsible for mass harm. This impunity coalesced into irreconciliation as the commission gave voice to people who had been forgotten, marginalized, and given little chance in life, while leaving out of the picture those who had actually stolen their lives and dignity.     

Rendering the absent visible: victimhood and the irreconcilability of violence

Contemporary justice-making processes often focus on reconciliation or legal retribution, but not on the complexity of victimhood beyond individual subjectivity or refusals of state propositions for social repair. In Colombia, where drug cartels and state-sponsored violence had terrorized the population for over fifty years, it was not forgiveness and acceptance that punctuated the turn of the twenty-first century, but the refusal to reconcile with the state's duplicity regarding the disappearance and death of thousands. This essay illustrates how irreconciliation as an affective sentiment is taking shape in Colombia through forms of reattribution that take the form of victim visibilizations. In analysing the strategic use of victim visibilizations as a refusal of state accountability, their expansion of the notion of victimhood, and their politics of irreconciliation, I show how even with the state's remorse-driven discourses, the public's understanding that political, judicial, and social accountability was not possible and pushed them to chart new strategies for disclosure and healing.     

Functional aspects of reconciliation among captive long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

After an agonistic conflict between two animals, they may exchange affiliative social contacts. The function of this reconciliation behavior is thought to be the repair of the social relationship between the two opponents. We examined the hypothesis that reconciliation is socially effective because it may also lead to a reduction of the victim's acute stress. Reconciliation was studied in a well-established captive group of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). The behavior of the victim in a 10 min period after the end of an agonistic interaction was recorded and compared with that of a control observation made on the same animal the next day. The tendency to reconcile was elevated above control levels only during the first 3 min. Reconciliation led to a fast reduction in scratching rates and to a decrease of the reoccurrence of aggression received. Losers took the initiative to reconcile more than expected. Dominants granted reconciliation depending on their relatedness with the victims and on the quality of the relationship with them. After those interactions in which contra-aggression and no clear submission occurred, the reconciliation rate was remarkably high. These results suggest that reconciliation can be an effective means to reduce the victim's acute stress and that its function in repairing social relationships can partly be mediated by its physiological effects. The intimate relation between the quality of the social relationship and the conciliatory tendency can be extrapolated to explain interspecific variation.     

Abolitionist feminism as patriarchal control: Swedish understandings of prostitution and trafficking

In this special issue, we note some recurrent themes in international political and discursive engagement with a moral panic concerning human trafficking, notably a conflation of forced and free prostitution, alongside calls to abolish the sex industry through a criminalisation of the purchase of sex. We here specifically examine Sweden’s sex purchase criminalisation, with Sweden being the first state globally to legislate according to this call. Proclaimed as a measure to attack demand for prostitution and trafficking alike, this law is justified by an abolitionist radical feminist understanding of prostitution as a form of patriarchal violence against women. We argue that radical feminist discourse has been used as a means by which to posture as a progressive state, putatively recognising the apparent harms of the sex industry. In reality, however, radical feminist discourse is applied selectively and circumstantially in Sweden, with sex workers seen both as passive victims of gendered violence (per radical feminist discourse), and as dishonest and immoral. These constructions are used interchangeably, to justify displacing and controlling women perceived to be deviant and disruptive to normative hegemonic masculinity.     

Beneath the master narrative: human trafficking, myths of sexual slavery and ethnographic realities

This paper explores the disconnections between anti-trafficking discourse and the local experience of responding to human trafficking as indicated in ethnographic data from Bosnia and Kazakhstan. Using the concept of “uptake,” I examine how anti-trafficking discourse operates as a master narrative, drawing on techniques of emotion and logic, as well as a specific type of victim story. I also consider how, despite an emerging counter discourse that questions the data and challenges current policy, human trafficking discourse continues to be retold in media and reproduced in popular culture, often in ways that actually diverge from the current version of the grand narrative. In contrast to these uncritical representations, ethnographic data from Bosnia suggest that the master narrative is selective in how it represents the history of the problem and that it does not “take up” important details about the context that fosters sexual exploitation, despite Bosnia’s compliance with US policy. Conversely, Kazakhstan suffers a liminal status regardless of local efforts to prevent the problem from happening within its borders as well as evidence that the crime is not widespread. While perhaps not mythical, I suggest that the master narrative contains the stuff of legend as it occupies the critical spaces of policy, activism and development, leaving open the question of how to address the nuances and needs of responding to victims of gender violence.     

Bonobos Respond to Distress in Others: Consolation across the Age Spectrum

How animals respond to conflict provides key insights into the evolution of socio-cognitive and emotional capacities. Evidence from apes has shown that, after social conflicts, bystanders approach victims of aggression to offer stress-alleviating contact behavior, a phenomenon known as consolation. This other-orientated behavior depends on sensitivity to the other''s emotional state, whereby the consoler acts to ameliorate the other''s situation. We examined post-conflict interactions in bonobos (Pan paniscus) to identify the determinants of consolation and reconciliation. Thirty-six semi-free bonobos of all ages were observed at the Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary, DR Congo, using standardized Post-conflict/Matched Control methods. Across age and sex classes, bonobos consoled victims and reconciled after conflicts using a suite of affiliative and socio-sexual behaviors including embracing, touching, and mounting. Juveniles were more likely to console than adults, challenging the assumption that comfort-giving rests on advanced cognitive mechanisms that emerge only with age. Mother-reared individuals were more likely to console than orphans, highlighting the role of rearing in emotional development. Consistent with previous studies, bystanders were more likely to console relatives or closely bonded partners. Effects of kinship, affiliation and rearing were similarly indicated in patterns of reconciliation. Nearby bystanders were significantly more likely to contact victims than more distal ones, and consolation was more likely in non-food contexts than during feeding. The results did not provide convincing evidence that bystander contacts served for self-protection or as substitutes for reconciliation. Overall, results indicate that a suite of social, developmental and contextual factors underlie consolation and reconciliation in bonobos and that a sensitivity to the emotions of others and the ability to provide appropriate consolatory behaviors emerges early in development.     

Functions of post‐conflict affiliation with a bystander differ between aggressors and victims in Japanese macaques

Post‐conflict affiliative interactions with a bystander, an uninvolved third party, have been reported in several species. The functions of these interactions could vary depending on whether the individual was an aggressor or a victim in a conflict. We examined the occurrence of and three potential functions for bystander affiliation—substitute for reconciliation, self‐protection and consolation (stress reduction)—in a free‐ranging group of Japanese macaques. We predicted that in this despotic species, the function of bystander affiliations for victims was self‐protection, whereas this was not so for aggressors. We found that compared to control situations, both aggressors and victims engaged in bystander affiliation soon after a conflict, confirming the occurrence of bystander affiliation. Victims were less likely to receive further aggression when bystander affiliation occurred than when no such interaction occurred, consistent with the explanation that post‐conflict bystander affiliation functions as self‐protection for victims. Aggressors were less likely to perform self‐scratching, an indicator of post‐conflict stress, when bystander affiliation occurred. This suggests that such affiliations benefited aggressors by reducing stress. Self‐scratching was not less frequent after affiliation with a bystander who was familiar with the former opponent, indicating that substitute reconciliation did not apply for either aggressors or victims. When bystander affiliation occurred, the bystander was a more familiar individual for aggressors and victims than the former opponent was. In conclusion, aggressors benefited in stress reduction, whereas victims benefited in self‐protection through affiliation with bystanders with whom they have a good relationship. Our study indicated that monkeys cope with post‐conflict problems according to their roles or situations not only by reconciliation but also by bystander affiliation.     

Absence in technicolour: protesting enforced disappearances in northern Sri Lanka

This essay examines the political uses of photography in the protests of the Tamil families of the disappeared in northern Sri Lanka. Enforced disappearances have long featured as an instrument of state terror. Their lingering effects have been noted as a significant challenge to transitional justice processes in the aftermath of the island's civil war. By examining how protesters make their political demands and grievances known through photography, I explore the tensions between visibility and surveillance. The competing photographies of the protests subvert conceptual understandings of the medium as an ideological tool, but also complicate claims of its capacities for enabling emancipation. Against a backdrop of ethno-nationalist conflict, this mobilization of and through photography serves as a defiant articulation of post-war ‘irreconciliation’. It is further tethered to a global visual vernacular of civilian resistance challenging state atrocity, as well as irreconcilable assertions of nation and state.     

When the Patient Remains in Danger: Psychotherapy in U.S. Combat Zones

Much of the literature on the psychological treatment of victims of violence focuses on demographic populations that do not represent the majority of victims. Part of the origin of this problem is that the prototypical victim and the prototypical perpetrator are often the same. Young, poor, minority males often constitute both the victim and the perpetrator class in America. As a group, these individuals, while disproportionately thought of as suitable for incarceration, are not thought of as good candidates for psychological treatment. However, their suffering is real, unrelenting and often not addressed. Therapists face significant barriers, in the patient, in society and in themselves, in trying to help these individuals. This article examines the issues of racism, drugs, ongoing danger, class inequalities, misogyny and the blended victim/perpetrator, all of which complicate engagement and understanding between therapist and patient.     

Violence against People with Disability in England and Wales: Findings from a National Cross-Sectional Survey

Background

The recent World Report on Disability highlighted violence as a leading cause of morbidity among disabled people. However, we know little about the extent to which people with disability experience different violence types, and associated health/economic costs. The recent introduction of disability measures into the England&Wales victimization survey provided an opportunity to address this gap.

Methods and Findings

Analysis of the 2009/10 British Crime Survey (BCS), a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of 44,398 adults living in residential households in England&Wales. Using multivariate logistic regression, we estimated the relative odds of being a victim of past-year violence (physical/sexual domestic or non-domestic violence) in people with disability compared to those without, after adjusting for socio-demographics, behavioural and area confounders. 1256/44398(2.4%) participants had one or more disabilities including mental illness (‘mental illness’) and 7781(13.9%) had one or more disabilities excluding mental illness (‘non-mental disability’). Compared with the non-disabled, those with mental illness had adjusted relative odds (aOR) of 3.0(95% confidence interval (CI) 2.3–3.8) and those with non-mental disability had aOR of 1.8(95% CI: 1.5–2.2) of being a victim of past-year violence (with similar relative odds for domestic and non-domestic violence). Disabled victims were more likely to suffer mental ill health as a result of violence than non-disabled victims. The proportion of violence that could be attributed to the independent effect of disability in the general population was 7.5%(CI 5.7–9.3%), at an estimated cost of £1.51 billion. The main study limitation is the exclusion of institutionalised people with disability.

Conclusions

People with disability are at increased risk of being victims of domestic and non-domestic violence, and of suffering mental ill health when victimized. The related public health and economic burden calls for an urgent assessment of the causes of this violence, and national policies on violence prevention in this vulnerable group.     

Anthropology,human rights and justice

Anthropologists have a special obligation to promote the human rights of the peoples they study. This paper discusses various ways anthropologists can meet that obligation by working with various United Nations and regional intergovernmental human rights convention committees, their own state government's human rights and humanitarian affairs commissions, and human rights non-governmental organizations.     

Post-conflict Behaviour of Wild Olive Baboons. II. Stress and Self-directed Behaviour

Previous studies indicate that the proximate function of post-conflict affiliative interaction among primates is to reduce a victim's uncertainty about its opponent's future behaviour: the ‘uncertainty reduction hypothesis’ (Aureli & van Schaik 1991; Ethology, 89 , 101–114). This study confirms and extends these results, demonstrating that they are neither a product of captivity nor specific to macaques: both victims and initiators of aggression in a large group of wild olive baboons exhibited elevated rates of self-directed behaviour (SDB) - scratching, autogrooming, body-shaking and yawning - in a 10-min post-conflict period. During this period, they were more likely to receive further aggression. Reconciliation reduced both SDB and the incidence of further aggression. However, reconciliation only reduced SDB among individuals involved in conflicts in which both parties exchanged aggression. It is suggested that aggressors in unilateral conflicts were aroused rather than uncertain and that their victims' lack of control over post-conflict interactions (which tended to be initiated by their opponents) prevented them from benefiting from reconciliation in the same fashion as longtailed macaque victims, which frequently initiated reconciliation.     

Revisiting the rural/race debates: A view from the Welsh countryside

The analysis of the specific features of rural racism and rural/race issues is a developing field of study. Much of the debate and existing research focuses on demonstrating the “specificity” of rural/race issues and responding to the “rural ethnic subject” as the victim of racial exclusion and/or violence. Drawing on a study conducted in the north of Wales and work on Welsh narratives on race, this article seeks to revisit the rural/race debate and argues for its repositioning within wider discourses of British multiculturalism. It explores the conceptual basis of the rural racism debates, in particular seeking to qualify the notion of the “specificity” of rural/race matters within the context of the newly devolved nations and particular constructions of “the ethnic subject” in rural/race relations. It suggests ways in which the “rural” discourse on race decentres the dominant narratives of multicultural Britain and is contributing to its reformulation.     

Violence in Peru: Performances and Dialogues

The author analyzes protest songs and art from postwar Peru using Nestor García Canclini's understanding of the current reorganization of culture as a struggle over symbolic capital and cultural goods. The author also seeks to place her own work on the dialogical ground occupied by Peruvian performers through her creation of laments by the means of dedications to the disappeared. In so doing, she seeks not only to influence readers' perceptions of the political violence in Peru, but also to transform the relationship of researchers to and the rules of academic discourse about such events.     

The ‘SONY NIGHTCLUB’: Rural Brothels,Gender Violence,and Development in Coastal Ecuador

ABSTRACT

In the Ecuadorian public imaginary, Manabí province is constructed as a lawless frontier. Manaba men are characterized for their aggressive masculinity, robust and primitive sexuality, and their proclivity towards resolving conflict with violence. This paper examines community debates about brothels and healthy sexuality in a rural coastal region where the state is expanding its reach into domestic life via the regulation of sexual intimacies and family violence. Local debates about healthy sexuality embody the historically contested and currently changing nature of state–community relationships in this previously marginalized region. While certain community factions invoke modernizing discourses of women's rights in their struggle to shut down brothels and mitigate family violence, others argue for unregulated sexuality as a way to diminish violence. Drawing from over 10 years of ethnographic research on gender, violence, and human rights in Ecuador, this paper reveals the co-construction of rural intimacies and the boundaries of state intervention.     

Symptoms Associated with Victimization in Patients with Schizophrenia and Related Disorders

Background

Patients with psychoses have an increased risk of becoming victims of violence. Previous studies have suggested that higher symptom levels are associated with a raised risk of becoming a victim of physical violence. There has been, however, no evidence on the type of symptoms that are linked with an increased risk of recent victimization.

Methods

Data was taken from two studies on involuntarily admitted patients, one national study in England and an international one in six other European countries. In the week following admission, trained interviewers asked patients whether they had been victims of physical violence in the year prior to admission, and assessed symptoms on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Only patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or related disorders (ICD-10 F20–29) were included in the analysis which was conducted separately for the two samples. Symptom levels assessed on the BPRS subscales were tested as predictors of victimization. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to estimate adjusted odds ratios.

Results

Data from 383 patients in the English sample and 543 patients in the European sample was analysed. Rates of victimization were 37.8% and 28.0% respectively. In multivariable models, the BPRS manic subscale was significantly associated with victimization in both samples.

Conclusions

Higher levels of manic symptoms indicate a raised risk of being a victim of violence in involuntary patients with schizophrenia and related disorders. This might be explained by higher activity levels, impaired judgement or poorer self-control in patients with manic symptoms. Such symptoms should be specifically considered in risk assessments.     

US report on violence in the medical workplace may hold lessons for Canadian MDs.

Concern about the growing incidence of violence against health care professionals has prompted the Young Physicians Section of the American Medical Association to research and develop a publication designed to raise physicians'' awareness. Violence in the Medical Workplace. Prevention Strategies provides some commonsense precautions that could minimize the possibility a physician will fall victim to violence at the hands of a patient.