Centre for the Study of Social Systems
School of Social Sciences
CSSS Colloquium
Raheel Dhattiwala
(University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Will be presenting a paper on
Revisiting the “neighbour”: Everyday relations between victims and perpetrators of mass violence
August 08, 2019 (Thursday), 11am
CSSS Committee Room (No: 13), SSS-II
Abstract: Living next to someone from a different ethnicity can reduce prejudice, even violence between them. Equally, it is also true that perpetrators of mass violence are often neighbours (e.g. pogroms and riots in India and Sri Lanka; genocide in Rwanda; riots in the US and the UK). This inherent paradox is resolved if perpetrators are convicted expeditiously. But in the developing world, including India, protracted judicial trials mean that convictions are absent or delayed. Who is a ‘neighbour’ and what shapes the nature of everyday relationships in these places? What do such compulsions of survival mean for a functional democracy? An exploratory study of this topic in my recent book employed cognitive maps and testimonies to conceptualize the ‘neighbour’. A superficial cordiality was found to exist among perpetrators and victims/families—a public relationship based on politeness—necessitated by the smooth functioning or collective efficacy of their neighbourhood. Exaggerated friendliness in public did not preclude antagonism in private. Quite like the superficial politeness of the American South and Northern Ireland, such behaviour suggests that people in ethnically tense places may live together without developing harmonious alliances, yet effectively work towards collective goals—a possible mechanism of conflict resolution in precarious environments.
Bionote : Raheel Dhattiwala is affiliated with the European Research Council-funded Group Violence project at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. She holds master’s and doctoral degrees in Sociology from the University of Oxford, where she held the Nuffield College’s Sociology Doctoral Award from 2009 to 2012. Her first book with Cambridge University Press, titled Keeping the Peace: Spatial Differences in Hindu-Muslim Violence in Gujarat, 2002 explains peacekeeping during extreme violence by linking wider political factors with micro-level conditions for violence to actually occur. She has previously published in Politics & Society; Qualitative Sociology; Contemporary South Asia; and Economic & Political Weekly. Formerly, she worked as a senior reporter with the Times of India in Ahmedabad (2001-2007).
