Small wars and invisible genocides

Social Science and Medicine

Volumn 43, Issue 5, 1996, Pages 889-900

  Scheper Hughes, Nancy ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Genocide; South Africa; Urban violence

Indexed keywords

CONFERENCE PAPER; HUMAN; SOUTH AFRICA; VIOLENCE; WAR;

EID: 0030245716     PISSN: 02779536     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(96)00152-9     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (29)

1. 1. Das V Language and body: transactions in the construction of pain. Daedalus 125 (1), 67-92, 1996.
2. 2. Kleinman A., Kleinman J. The appeal of experience; the dismay of images: cultural appropriations of suffering in our times. Special issue on Social Suffering. Daedalus 125 (1, 1996, 1-24.
3. 3. Article 227 of the new Brazilian Constitution states unequivocally that 'it is the duty of the family, society, and the state to assure with absolute priority the rights of children and adolescents to life, health, food, education, leisure, occupational training, culture, dignity, respect, freedom, and family and community life, and in addition, to protect them from all forms of negligence, discrimination, exploitation, violence, cruelty, and oppression.' Article 30 of the new South African Constitution guarantees ever child the right to name and nationality from birth, parental care, to public health and social services, to freedom from abuse, neglect and exploitative labor practices, and to be detained under conditions appropriate to age.
4. 4. Fackenheim E. (1970) God's Presence in History: Jewish Affirmations and Philosopical Reflections after Auschwitz. New York University Press, New York.
5. 5. Scheper-Hughes N. and Lovell A. M. (eds) (1987) Psychiatry Inside Out: Selected Writings of Franco Basaglia. Columbia University Press, New York.
6. 6. Goffman E. (1965) Asylums. Doubleday, Garden City, New Jersey.
7. 7. Weiss M. (1997) Taking a Walk on the Wild Side. In Scheper-Hughes N. & Sargent C. (eds) The Cultural Politics of Childhood. University of California Press, Berkeley). In press.
8. 8. Arendt H. (1963) Eichmann in Jerusalem: a Report on the Banality of Evil. Vintage, New York.
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10. 10. Erikson E. (1950) Childhood and Society. Publisher??.
11. 11. Scheper-Hughes N. (1992) Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. University of California Press, Berkeley.
12. 12. Scheper-Hughes N. (1996) Demography without Numbers. In: David Kertzer and Tom Fricke (eds) Anthropological Demography. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
13. 13. Brooke J. (1993) Brazil's Army joins battle in lawless Rio. New York Times 6 November 4.
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19. 19. Dimenstein G. (1991) Brazil: War on Children. Monthly Review Press, New York.
20. 20. Caldeira T. (1992) City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in Sao Paulo. Doctoral Dissertation, Anthropology Department, University of California, Berkeley. Also, University of California Press, Berkeley.
21. 21. I am mindful, of course, that a similar situation applies in the United States where de facto neighborhood segregation, racism, unemployment, and poverty combine to create ideal social conditions for a cycle of 'inner city' failure and violence leading to heightened police surveillance and 'neighborhood watch' activity, much of it repressive, some of it violent. And, of course, the life prospects of inner city youth in America are little better than those of their Brazilian counterparts, and the rates of violent death in some sections of Oakland, California are comparable to those from Rio de Janeiro. Moreover, the following analysis could go much further to implicate the role of trans-national capital and U.S. foreign policy in supporting authoritarian rule in Brazil with all its negative consequences for poor children.
22. 22. I offer their names here as a small act of resistance and as a way of honoring their short lives: Pedrinho, Zeze, Docideiro, Rihgue, Malaquia, Deda, Beto Boca de Veia, Joca, Misso, Bebe, Taiga, Ze Pequeno, Pipio, Regi, Geronimo, Xunda, Gilvam, Bodinha, Biu, Nino, Biopiolho, Fro.
23. 23. Goldstein D. M. (1997) Nothing bad is intended; child discipline, punishment and survival in a shanty-town in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In: Scheper-Hughes N. and Sargent C. (eds) The Cultural Politics of Childhood. University of California Press, Berkeley. In press.
24. 24. Chambani Manganyi N. and du Toit A. (eds) (1990) Political Violence and the Struggle in South Africa. Southern Book Publishers, Halfway House 1685, Republic of South Africa.
25. 25. Scheper-Hughes N. (1995) Who's the Killer? Popular Justice and Human Rights in a South African Squatter Camp. Social Justice 22(3), 143-164.
26. 26. Cock J. (1994) The Ulysses Factor: the Social Integration of Demobilized Soldiers in Contemporary South Africa. Paper read at the International Conference, Democracy and Difference, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1994.
27. 27. Lerer L., Matzopoulos R. and Bradshaw, D. (1995) A Profile of Violence and Injury Mortality in the Cape Town Metropole, 1994. South Africa Medical Research Council: Tygerberg, Republic of South Africa.
28. 28. Mail & Guardian, South Africa (1996) An Ordinary Weekend in Sunny South Africa: Poor, Black, Male and Stabbed to Death. March 1-7, p. 13.
29. 29. Reynolds P. (1990) Children and Tribulation: the Need to Heal and the Means to Heal War Trauma. Africa 60(1), 1-37.