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Accepted Contribution:

Normalizing Murder? Reflections on Fieldwork in Jamaica  
Eilat Maoz (Hebrew University)

Contribution short abstract:

Drawing from fieldwork experiences in Jamaica, the talk will explore how extended exposure to violence can lead to its normalization, while raising theoretical questions about the anthropological study of murder.

Contribution long abstract:

When I returned from two years of fieldwork in Jamaica, conducted during years when the country suffered from one of the highest murder rates in the world, my sister told me in one of our conversations that I have “normalized murder”. Indeed, during my fieldwork, I associated quote often and closely with men who killed: gang members, police officers who participated in death squads, as well as 'ordinary' people who had committed murder at some point in their lives and who paid the price for it. In the talk, I will discuss turning points in the research that made me feel that murder is indeed quite a 'normal' thing that humans sometimes do, and even learn to “stop worrying and start loving” murderers. I will raise questions about the ethical and political meaning and dilemmas that arise from such a stand. At the same time, I will try to think about why anthropology, which has dealt extensively with issues of sin and taboo, does not offer us ethnographic descriptions and theoretical engagement with the homicide phenomenon. What can anthropology still contribute to the cross-cultural understanding of 'murder,' and is it even possible to talk about such a category in universal terms.

Roundtable R05
Entanglements of fieldwork in a violent world
  Session 1