Understanding Disputes

Pat Caplan Goldsmiths College,University of London Gino Bedani Professor and Head of Italian, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University College of Swansea

'I expect it to be both a popular and useful text for teaching the anthropology of law.' David Brokensha, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology and Environmental Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara'This is a book worht reading, and quite appropriate for undergraduate courses. It gives the flavour of recent ethnography in bite-sized, digestible chunks and illustrates theoretical ideas not only about disputes, but also, as Caplan points out, about more fundamental aspects of social life.'JASO

• Contents: P. Caplan, Introduction: Anthropology and the Study of Disputes - S. F. Moore, Imperfect Communications - L. Nader, Civilization and its Negotiations - E. Colson, The Contentiousness of Disputes - C. Johnson, Gentlemanly Values: Contesting Corruption Accusations in the Cities of London and Lagos in the Mid-1950s - M. Silverman, The 'Inhabitants' vs the 'Sovereign': A Historical Ethnography of the Making of the 'Middle Class' in an Irish Corporate Borough, 1840-1 - L. Caplan, The Milieu of Disputation: Managing Quarrels in East Nepal - D. Parkin, Disputing Human Passion: The Negotiation of the Meaning of Love among the Giriama of Kenya - S. Gaetz, 'Youth Development': Conflict and Negotiations in an Urban Irish Youth Club - P. Caplan, 'Law' and 'Custom': Marital Disputes on Northern Mafia Island, Tanzania - A. Southall, Courts of Death Among the Alur of Uganda