Violence in El Salvador

A Rejoinder to Philippe Bourgois's `The Power of Violence in War and Peace

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2402181
AutoresArthur Leigh Binford (0000-0003-1999-5872, Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico), Leigh Binford (Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, autor correspondente)
Ano2002
Volume3
Fascículo2
Páginas201-219
Data de publicação2002-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEthnography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1466-1381 • E-ISSN: 1741-2714
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1466138102003002004
OpenAlexW2086717101
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas20
Referências citadas29

This article engages Philippe Bourgois's analysis of the continuum of violence from wartime to post-war El Salvador in Ethnography (2:1). Acknowledging the utility of the violence model proposed by Bourgois, it contends that a general theory of structural relations and everyday violence requires mediating concepts in order to be usefully applied in any concrete situation, and that Bourgois has not supplied them. As a consequence, Bourgois's application of the model to Salvadoran wartime and post-war reality is excessively mechanical. Study of the unfavorable peace settlement, which preserved unequal structural relations, is probably necessary in order to shed light on the high levels of post-war violence. The shortcomings of Bourgois's analysis is further related to an over-reliance on personal narrative, discussed here in terms of the `testimonial function

Art · Epistemology · Ethnography · Literature · Narrative · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Settlement (finance · Sociology · Structural violence · Testimonial · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Law · Philosophy · Politics and Society in Latin America · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies