Introduction/revitalizing international security analysis: Contributions from culture and symbolic process

Some anthropologists have noted instances of conflict or warfare during the course of their fieldwork and have provided brief descriptions of these in the context of ethnographies that focus largely on other aspects of social life. Most social anthropological work describes in detail the social and cultural systems of particular groups. Anthropologists have periodically tried to bring their work to bear on current concerns and to contribute directly to public policy discussions. Peoples with customs that are very different from our own often seem inscrutable. Yet, anthropologists, by living among such peoples, begin to learn the rules that guide behavior that at first seems strange— even perhaps irrational. The Reagan administration is often criticized by its opponents as ruling by means of exploitation of popular symbols and the emotion that is generated by their evocation. Culture provides the symbolic matrix within the context of which factors contributing to social disruption or cohesion must be interpreted.