In this thesis I explore the effects of the recent introduction of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the post-conflict and postsocialist discourse of Croatian psychiatry. In recent years Croatian psychiatrists have been faced with a significant increase in the number of reported cases of various types of war-related disorders. PTSD, in particular, is spreading among the population of veterans from Croatia’s Homeland War that lasted from 1991 to 1995. To explore the effects of the introduction of PTSD to the discourse of Croatian psychiatry I am raising the following questions: (1) how was the diagnostic category of PTSD introduced; (2) how are Croatian war veterans encouraged to communicate their traumatic experiences; (3) how are ideas about the effective treatment of PTSD reproduced, transformed, and resisted by individual medical practitioners? In the final analysis, I argue that PTSD in Croatian psychiatry is constituted in a way that makes it both a medically recognizable form of emotional suffering and an instrument in post-conflict governmentality.

Le sanctuaire laténien de Ribemont-sur-Ancre (Somme) est interprété comme un lieu dévolu au culte après des évènements guerriers survenus durant le IIIe siècle avant J. C. Des pièces métalliques (lances, épées, éléments de harnachement), céramiques, restes de faune et des os humains, appartenant à plus de 500 individus, dont les têtes sont absentes, ont été découverts sur ce site. Nous avons identifiés de nombreuses traces de violence à la surface de ces os humains : guerre, décapitation, décarnisation, amputations. Les analyses ostéométriques mettent en lumière les caractéristiques physiques de ces Gaulois. L’examen des nombreuses traces permet de formuler des hypothèses sur les procédés de la guerre et sur le traitement réservé aux corps. Cette approche et le large corpus de Ribemont-sur-Ancre offrent l’opportunité d’avancer de nouvelles interprétations sur l’organisation du sanctuaire et d’ébaucher une anthropologie de la guerre et du guerrier chez les Gaulois. / The Iron Age sanctuary at Ribemont-sur-Ancre (Somme) is interpreted as a place devoted to cult establish after warlike events which took place during 3rd B. C. century. Metallic pieces (weapons, swords, harness fitting), ceramics, faunal remains, and humans bones, remains of the body of more 500 individuals, with an absence of skulls, have been recovered. We identified lot of violence marks on the surface bones: warfare, beheading, defleshing, amputation. The ostéometric analysis highlighted features in physical characteristic of gauls individuals. Examinations of numerous traces allow to put forward hypothesis on the process of war and body remains treatments. The approach and the large corpus at Ribemont-sur-Ancre, allow to put forward new interpretation on the sanctuary organization and about anthropology of war and gaul warriors.

This thesis is an ethnographic account of social change, triggered by the civil war in Nepal (1996-2006). Based on an ethnographic fieldwork in the village of Thabang, the war-time capital of the Maoist base area, this thesis explores the transformative impact of the conflict on people’s everyday lives and on the constitution of key hierarchies structuring Nepali society. Rather than focusing on violence and fear – the commonly researched themes in warzones – the thesis examines people’s everyday social and embodied practices during the war and its aftermath, arguing that these remain central to our understanding of war-time social processes and the ways in which they shape the contours of post-conflict society. By focusing on mundane practices – such as meat-eating and alcohol-drinking, raising livestock and worshipping gods – the thesis demonstrates how change at the micro-level is illustrative of a profound transformation in the social structures constituting Nepali society. Theoretically, the thesis seeks to understand how the situation of war re-orders society: in this case, how people in the Maoist base area interiorized formerly transgressive norms and practices, and how these practices were normalized in the post-conflict environment. The research revealed that much of the change triggered by the conflict came as a result of the ‘exceptional’ times of war and the necessity to follow ‘rules that apply in times of crisis’. Thus, in adopting transgressive practices during the conflict, people were responding to the expediency of war-time rather than following Maoist war-time policies or ‘propaganda’. Furthermore, while adopting hitherto unimaginable practices and making them into habitual action, people transformed the rigid social structures, without necessarily intending to do so. The thesis puts particular stress on the centrality of unintended consequences in social change, the power of embodied practice in making change real, and the ways in which agency and structure are mutually constitutive.