Notes Toward Ethnographies of Conflict and Violence

Abstract

This article examines the characteristics of recent ethnographies of “conflict zones,” especially those that seek to bring an experience-near depiction of violence to the reader. These works are contrasted to older ethnographic treatments of violence. A number of critiques of these works are considered, and the article concludes with a discussion of the several roles (methodological, conceptual, and moral) that the human rights movement has played in helping to formulate the agenda for the new ethnographies of violence and conflict.