Out of War - by Mariane C Ferme (Paperback)

About the Book

"Out of War draws on author Mariane C. Ferme's three decades of ethnographic engagements to examine the after-effects of the harms of a civil war, the legacy of which is experienced in both physical and psychological ways. Ferme examines the relationship among violence, temporality, trauma, and forms of knowledge. She also puts an emphasis on "war times"--on the different qualities of temporality. She considers the persistence of pre-colonial and colonial figures of sovereignty re-elaborated in the context of war, and the circulation of rumors and neologisms that freeze in time as collective anxieties (or "chronotopes"). Above and beyond the expected traumas of war, Ferme explores the breaks in the intergenerational transmission of techniques of farming and hunting knowledge, and the lethal effects of remembering experienced traumas and of forgetting local knowledge. In the context of massive population displacements and humanitarian interventions, this ethnography traces strategies of survival and material dwelling, and the juridical creation of new figures of victimhood, where colonial and postcolonial legacies are reinscribed in neoliberal projects of decentralization and individuation"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Out of War draws on Mariane C. Ferme's three decades of ethnographic engagements to examine the physical and psychological aftereffects of the harms of Sierra Leone's civil war. Ferme analyzes the relationship between violence, trauma, and the political imagination, focusing on "war times"--the different qualities of temporality arising from war. She considers the persistence of precolonial and colonial figures of sovereignty re-elaborated in the context of war, and the circulation of rumors and neologisms that freeze in time collective anxieties linked to particular phases of the conflict (or "chronotopes"). Beyond the expected traumas of war, Ferme explores the breaks in the intergenerational transmission of farming and hunting techniques, and the lethal effects of remembering experienced traumas and forgetting local knowledge. In the context of massive population displacements and humanitarian interventions, this ethnography traces strategies of survival and material dwelling, and the juridical creation of new figures of victimhood, where colonial and postcolonial legacies are reinscribed in neoliberal projects of decentralization and individuation.

From the Back Cover

"There is no realm of life that Mariane Ferme overlooks in Sierra Leone as she calls pundits, analysts, and international officials to account for their disastrous misreadings of the war and postwar situation. Her exemplary book transcends ready distinctions between academic and policy-orientated work in the best possible way."--Joseph Hellweg, Associate Professor of Religion, Florida State University
"This is a rich ethnography based on a great deal of close personal experience in the field. A nuanced account of the civil war in Sierra Leone and its aftermath, the book elicits new and innovative insights into such phenomena as child soldiers, forced marriage, chiefships, and youth militias."--James H. Smith, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Davis

Review Quotes

"Ferme weaves together a careful analysis of archival writings and photos with participant observation, personal meditations, and reinterpretations of war tropes to illustrate how violence flares up in popular anxieties and then dies down, or how it continues to live on in traumas, deaths, and breakages in the social world."-- "African Studies Review"

About the Author

Mariane C. Ferme is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of The Underneath of Things: Violence, History, and the Everyday in Sierra Leone.