Displacing Enigma and Shaping Communal Hegemony – Towards the Analysis of Violent Experience as Social Process

摘要

This paper explores the ethnographic relevance of the concept of enigmatic experience for the analysis of violent experiences. It argues that experiences of violence can be understood as enigmatic, which subsequent memory work [Johanes Fabian. “Forgetful Remembering: A Colonial Life in the Congo” Africa 73(4) (2003)] displace by processes of entextualization as well as by silencing. Through an analysis of ethnographic material from the Central Peruvian Highlands the paper explores these processes of displacement and it argues that they can be explained only by engaging in the ethnographic analysis of particular social and semantic fields. Keywords Peru - Andes - violence - experience - narrative - memory - community - hegemony - gender