Günther Schlee - How Enemies Are Made: Towards a Theory of Ethnic and Religious Conflicts

How Enemies are Made

INTEGRATION AND CONFLICT STUDIES

Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale

Series Editor: Gnther Schlee, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Editorial Board: John Eidson (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Peter Finke (University of Zurich), Joachim Grlich (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Jacqueline Knrr (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Bettina Mann (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)

Assisted by: Cornelia Schnepel and Viktoria Zeng (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)

Volume 1

How Enemies are Made Towards a Theory of Ethnic and Religious Conflicts Gnther Schlee

Volume 2

Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-East Africa Vol. I: Ethiopia and Kenya

Edited by Gnther Schlee and Elizabeth E. Watson

Volume 3

Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-East Africa Vol. II: Sudan, Uganda and the Ethiopia-Sudan Borderlands Edited by Gnther Schlee and Elizabeth E. Watson

Towards a Theory of Ethnic and Religious Conflicts

Gnther Schlee

Berghahn Books

New York Oxford

First published in 2008 by

Berghahn Books

www.berghahnbooks.com

2008, 2010 Gnther Schlee

First paperback edition published in 2010

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schlee, Gnther.

How enemies are made : towards a theory of ethnic and religious conflicts / Gnther Schlee.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-84545-494-4

1. Ethnic conflict. 2. Social conflict--Religious aspects. 3. Conflict management.

I. Title.

HM1121.S34 2008

305.6'970890096773--dc22

2008026232

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed on acid-free paper

ISBN 978-1-84545-494-4 hardback

ISBN 978-1-84545-779-2 paperback

Figures

Tables

Figure 1.1 Map of north-east Africa with some of the principal ethnic groups mentioned in this book.

We expect science to provide insights we cannot gain from a mere everyday view on things. A systematic conceptual understanding, a methodical process, and data gathered in some standardised fashion or at least intentionally and with a sense of purpose are supposed to sharpen our awareness of hidden connections. To differentiate between science and an everyday understanding does not usually pose problems for natural scientists. Simply, by concerning themselves with different scales of phenomena from the ones accessible to the human senses without technical support for instance talking about molecules or galaxies they mark their knowledge as clearly distinct from everyday knowledge. They do not have any difficulties in defining science as a special form of knowledge. On the contrary, their problem is rather to make their knowledge generally comprehensible: to explain to an audience not trained in their own specific discipline, to laymen in their field, what it is exactly they do and this includes the politicians who are to provide them with the financial means for their research. Their problem therefore is translation of their scientific language into everyday language. Some social scientists seem to reverse this process. They translate an everyday experience into a special jargon, and call that professionalisation. Whoever sees through the trick will become suspicious and ask about the scientific gain: that is, the proportion of knowledge which would not be available to society without a separate functional area of science.