Charred lullabies : chapters in an anthropography of violence / E. Valentine Daniel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Daniel, E. Valentine.

Series:

Princeton studies in culture/power/history.

Princeton studies in culture/power/history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Sri Lanka--Fieldwork.

Ethnology.

Ethnology--Sri Lanka--Philosophy.

Violence--Sri Lanka.

Violence.

Sri Lanka--Ethnic relations.

Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka--Social conditions.

Sri Lanka--Politics and government--1978-.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (266 pages)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1996.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How does an ethnographer write about violence? How can he make sense of violent acts, for himself and for his readers, without compromising its sheer excess and its meaning-defying core? How can he remain a scholarly observer when the country of his birth is engulfed by terror? These are some of the questions that engage Valentine Daniel in this exploration of life and death in contemporary Sri Lanka. In 1983 Daniel "walked into the ashes and mortal residue" of the violence that had occurred in his homeland. His planned project--the study of women's folk songs as ethnohistory--was immediately displaced by the responsibility that he felt had been given to him, by surviving family members and friends of victims, to recount beyond Sri Lanka what he had seen and heard there. Trained to do fieldwork by staying in one place and educated to look for coherence and meaning in human behavior, what does an anthropologist do when he is forced by circumstances to keep moving, searching for reasons he never finds? How does he write an ethnography (or an anthropography, to use the author's term) without transforming it into a pornography of violence? In avoiding fattening the anthropography into prurience, how does he avoid flattening it with theory? The ways in which Daniel grapples with these questions, and their answers, instill this groundbreaking book with a rare sense of passion, purpose, and intellect.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION

Introduction

ONE. Of Heritage and History

TWO. History's Entailments in the Violence of a Nation

THREE. Violent Measures, Measured Violence

FOUR. Mood, Moment, and Mind

FIVE. Embodied Terror

SIX. Suffering Nation and Alienation

SEVEN. Crushed Glass: A Counterpoint to Culture

NOTES

GLOSSARY OF FREQUENTLY USED TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

REFERENCES

INDEX

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-239) and index.

ISBN:

9786612753060

9781282753068

1282753061

9781400822034

1400822033

OCLC:

700688504