Yazid Ben Hounet will deliver a talk on the relationship between blood money and the anthropology of law on Tuesday, November 11th, 12:30 p.m. at the Kriser Room in the Department of Anthropology, located at 25 Waverly Place.
The payment of blood money–compensation for homicide or bodily injury—is a practice found in many societies and many historical periods. It engages fundamental understandings about the meanings and value attributed to human life. For this reason, it has attracted the attention of many early or more contemporary anthropologists interested in the mechanisms of conflict settlement and more broadly in the legal arrangements in the societies they have analyzed. Yet, if blood money is mentioned in many anthropological works, it has never been the central focus of any. This topic nonetheless provides an effective entry point for thinking about cross-cultural variations in notions of crime/tort and conciliation/reconciliation. Focusing on the Algerian and Sudanese contexts, this talk will outline a comprehensive and comparative approach to blood money in the field of the anthropology of law.
Come join NYU faculty and peers for this engrossing lecture!