PROJECTS
MIDDLE EAST

LOCALITY AND PIETY IN ISLAMIC NORTH AFRICA AND WEST ASIA
(1) Gebhard Fartacek | Zones of Uncertainty: Ritual and Taboo in the Near East from the Perspectives of Space and Time.
(2) Gebhard Fartacek | Pilgrimage Cities in the Syrian Periphery. An Ethnographic Study of the Cognitive Construction of Sacred Places and their Practical Relevance.
(3) Günther Windhager | From Lemberg to Mecca (1900-1927).The early biography of Leopold Weiss, alias Muhammad Asad.
(4) Barbara Danczul | “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?” Local Strategies for Conflict Resolution of Violence and Revenge in Egypt.
(5) Ines Kohl | Identities between Boundaries: Strategies of Belonging among the Imajeghen (Tuareg) of Libya.
(6) Gudrun Kroner | Beyond the Ties of Home. A Comparison of Female Refugees in the Arabic-Islamic world.
(7) Johann Heiss | Anthropological Interpretations in Southwest Arabia.
 
 
 
BARBARA DANCZUL| “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?”
Local Strategies for Conflict Resolution of Violence and Revenge in Egypt.
 
The central focus of Barbara Danczul’s investigation was an examination of local strategies for conflict resolution in the Near East. From the perspective of legal anthropology, this region is characterized by a long history of legal pluralism involving ...
 
... three distinct legal systems:
  • The oldest of these is the pre-Islamic, orally transmitted, locally differentiated, and continually adapting system of custom (’urf).
  • The Shari’a, Islamic law, is the second, wider legal influence that in some instances replaced the older system and in other instances modified it.
  • Finally, the legal systems of the modern state, created largely through the influence of French and British colonial rule and subsequently nullifying portions of Islamic law, constitutes the third and most recent layer of the legal systems.
Barbara Danczul investigated both the contemporary measures and the ancient legal traditions that are used by local legal experts to eliminate or address the problems of feuds, revenge and honor-conflicts. The research project was conducted in the southern Egyptian city of Assiut, a center of Egyptian Islam, finding that even in this center of Islamic learning, the wider Islamic law hardly is followed in any strict sense (not to mention the nearly complete absence of the modernized, western legal code). During several field research visits she followed legal proceedings that were conducted in line with the ’urf as the oldest set of local customs: trial by ordeal, in which the tongue of the defendant is put to test with a glowing rod of iron, and public confessions, where the criminal must beg forgiveness from the victim’s family.
 
The author’s question, “What makes the older, local customs so strong?” ...
 
... finds a partial answer in the increased tendency of people, particularly in the era of globalization, to rely on close, trusted, relationships and local traditions. In the context of legal pluralism the older practices of common law have a future: from the perspectives of many, both national and Islamic law are oriented toward an international standard (whether formulated in The Hague or in Mecca) that seems pale and lifeless in comparison with local traditions. From this point of view, the laws of custom are viable alternatives to wider influences. Barbara Danczul demonstrated how local, common-law judges not only negotiate between feuding parties, but also between the different legal systems. This provides a better understanding of varied legal institutions and practices in Egypt.
 
Danczul’s book is scheduled to be published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
 
 
 
Danczul, Barbara (2005): Letzter Ausweg Schiedsgericht? Rechtsnormen und außergerichtliche Streitbeilegung in Ägypten. In: Heiss, Johann (ed.): Veränderung und Stabilität. Normen und Werte in islamischen Gesellschaften. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
-> see publications
 
Danczul, Barbara (2005): Blut wird niemals Wasser werden! Lokale Strategien zur Beilegung gewalttätiger/ fehdeähnlicher Konflikte in Oberägypten. Dissertation, University of Vienna.

 
     
 
 

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Notice: We want to inform you that the research program will come to an end on the 31st of March 2007. Since that time this homepage will not be updated anymore.