THEFT OF AN IDOL by Paul R. Brass ( 9780691026510 ) - Books & Audio Books at Pickabook.co.uk

Item Details

Title:

THEFT OF AN IDOL
TEXT AND CONTEXT IN THE REPRESENTATION OF COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE

By:

Format:

Hardback

List price:	£49.00
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ISBN 10:

0691026513

ISBN 13:

9780691026510

Publisher:

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

23 February, 1997

Series:

Princeton Studies in Culture, Power, History

Pages:

317

Description:

As collective violence erupts in many parts of the world, the media often links this to age-old ethnic or religious hostilities, thereby freeing the state from responsibility. This book encourages readers to look more closely at the issues by focusing on specific instances of violence.

Synopsis:

As collective violence erupts in many parts of the world, the media often links this to age-old ethnic or religious hostilities, thereby freeing the state, its agents and its political elites from responsibility. This book encourages readers to look more closely at the issues of violence, ethnicity and the state by focusing on specific instances of violence in their local contexts and questioning the prevailing interpretations of them. Through five case studies of both rural and urban public violence, including police-public confrontations and Hindu-Muslim riots, this book shows how, out of many possible interpretations applicable to these incidents, governments and the media select those that support existing relations of power in state and society. Adopting different modes (narrator, detective and social scientist) Brass treats incidents of collective violence arising intitially out of such common occurences as a drunken brawl, the rape of a woman and the theft of an idol, and demonstrates how some incidents remain localized whilst others are fit into broader frameworks of meaning, thereby becoming useful for upholders of dominant ideologies.He argues that incessant talk about violence and its implications in these circumstances contributes to its persistence rather than to its reduction. Such treatment, he claims, serves in fact to mask the causes of violence, displace the victims from the centre of attention and divert society's gaze from those responsible for its endemic character. He explains how this process ultimately implicates everyone in the perpetuation of systems of violence.

Illustrations:

3 line illus. 7 tables

Publication:

Imprint:

Princeton University Press

Returns:

Non-returnable

Some other items by this author:

AN INDIAN POLITICAL LIFE

AN INDIAN POLITICAL LIFE (HB)