Violence as a Contested Asset and Dynamics of Warrior Ideology at State Edges: Thugs and Harmony?

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Characteristic of many states is a legal monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Conversely, in small-scale normatively egalitarian societies entitlements to wield violent force are often diffuse and informally adjudicated. State formation thus frequently involves the formalization of institutions that restrict such entitlements to certain discrete social personae. Accordingly, frictions arise within state-forming communities as the few arrogate to themselves a capacity for socially legitimate violence that was formerly possessed by the many. But they should also be evident in societies bordering states that are exposed to the transformative forces emanating from larger polities looming nearby. We consider potential relationships between the process of violence monopolization in premodern states and the “warrior”-like ideologies often apparent at their edges. We propose that the prominence of “warrior ideology” and violent iconographies at state edges likely relates not to an especially violent lifestyle, but rather reflects the increased political fraughtness of a claim to the right to practice violence in sociopolitical environments where such an entitlement has become contested. We describe potential case studies that could support this claim, and discuss the implications for broader interpretations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35579.0