Formations of Violence
The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland
Formations of Violence
The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland
"A sophisticated and persuasive late-modernist political analysis that consistently draws the reader into the narratives of the author and those of the people of violence in Northern Ireland to whom he talked. . . . Simply put, this book is a feast for the intellect"—Thomas M. Wilson, American Anthropologist
"One of the best books to have been written on Northern Ireland. . . . A highly imagination and significant book. Formations of Violence is an important addition to the literature on political violence."—David E. Schmitt, American Political Science Review
327 pages | 3 maps | 6 x 9 | © 1991
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
Political Science: Political and Social Theory
Table of Contents
Surfaces and Centers
Embodied Transcripts
Map of the Book
The Politics of Narration
2. Spatial Formations of Violence
Origin Space
Partitions
The Interface
The Sanctuary
Paramilitaries, Populist Violence, and State Formation
The Runback
3. Hardmen, Gunmen, Butchers, Doctors, Stiffs, Ghosts, and Black Men
From Hardmen to Gunmen
Sensory Formations
The Butchers
Genealogies of the Dead
Stiffing
Doorsteps
Sacrificial Transfers
The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real
The Black Man
4. Being Done: Rites of Politicl Passage
Endocolonization
The Collectivization of Arrest
Resisting Arrest
Capture
Getting Done
Arrest and Death
Interrogation: Ceremony of Verification
The Name and the Eye
White Spaces
The Sensorium of Death
Breaking the Interrogation
Battle-proofing
5. The Breaker’s Yard
Prison Regime
Criminalization
Aborted Initiations
Scatology
The Mirror
The Body as Weapon Artifact
Mechanical Bears
Techniques and Discourses of the Body
6. Eschatology
H6
The Stiff
The Lark
Biological Time, Prison Time, Historical Time
Sacrifice Doubled
A Scene of Exchange from the Gospels
Interiorizing Subjects and Objects
The Reversal of Sacrifice
Appendix 1: Glossary
Appendix 2: Organizations Cited
Appendix 3: Republican Paramilitary Cohort
Notes
References
Index