Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T02:32:35.604Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Marc Howard Ross
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

A decade ago I began puzzling about why, and how, what to some people are innocent cultural expressions are to others provocative, aggressive, politically significant acts. At one level, I had known this was the case for a long time from personal observations and experiences as well as the analyses of scholars such as Murray Edelman and Abner Cohen, both of whom, in different ways, focused my attention on the political uses of culture. My own investigation of culture and politics started thirty years ago when I began a cross-cultural study of conflict that examined differences between high- and low-conflict societies. This project led me to articulate ideas concerning the complementary roles of structural and psychocultural mechanisms that create societal dispositions toward particular forms and levels of conflict and violence. Next I utilized the same framework to explore how any given theory of conflict has crucial implications for the theory and practice of conflict management. For example, if a conflict is viewed as one over resource competition, people trying to end it will seek to negotiate an agreement to divide the resources in a manner that all sides can accept, while those who attribute the same conflict to incompatible identities will make bridging these differences central to their conflict management efforts.

As part of my work on conflict management, I asked why some conflicts are managed more successfully than others, and a case I investigated in depth was the 1989 conflict in France that arose when three Muslim junior high students were expelled for wearing headscarves in school (Ross 1993b).

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Preface
  • Marc Howard Ross, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania
  • Book: Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491115.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Preface
  • Marc Howard Ross, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania
  • Book: Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491115.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • Marc Howard Ross, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania
  • Book: Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491115.001
Available formats
×