Written for Anthro405
Conflict within a group can be either destructive or constructive to unity and cohesion within the group depending on the type of conflict. Conflict that does not contradict the basic assumptions and values of the group tends to be positive in reinforcing the social structure. Close-knit groups tend toward more intense internal conflict than those with less frequent interaction for two reasons: a total personality involvement of the group members, and accumulated feelings of hostility that have been bottled up, both of which factors intensify the conflict, making it more destructive and possibly threatening the basis of the group. External conflicts, especially long-term or continued struggles, in a tightly-knit group also tend to be more intense and call for total personality involvement and unity from the group. Loosely structured groups tend to have several internal conflicts going on at the same time, and therefore the group members participate with only partial, not total, personality involvement and the conflicts are not as intense. In flexible social structures, society members participate in several different group affiliations without committing their total personality to any one of them, and therefore external conflict will not split the society along a single axis.
“Conflict within a group. . . may help to establish unity and cohesion where it has been threatened by hostile and antagonistic feelings among the group (Kivisto, p. 200).” Among the highlanders of Sardinia one type of internal conflict that relieves tension within the society by allowing the participants to act on their grievances is the vendetta. A vendetta avenges an offesa, or an insult to honor and manhood, and to the entire family of the insulted. Causes of vendetta are often acts that threaten the harmony and equilibrium of the society, two factors that are very important to most highlanders. “When people act on disagreements, attacking or destroying life or property, this is an offesa that requires retaliation and becomes a vendetta (Salzman p. 50).” The unofficial institution of the vendetta “acts as a deterrence to offending others (Salzman p. 50)”: knowing what effects one’s words and actions might have (for example, reprisals of physical violence and even death) makes a person more careful with what he says and to whom, so as not to start a vendetta through one’s own carelessness with word and deed.
This contributes to the unity of the group in two ways. First, in order to avoid becoming involved in a vendetta people will be nicer to each other, thus maintaining the equilibrium and cohesion of the village as a group. No one is offended and so no one needs to avenge a slight against their honor. Second, if a vendetta occurs, it tends to draw in the entire family of the insulted, because an offesa is against the honor of the family as well as the insulted individual. The family has no alternative except to pull together in the face of a vendetta. So the insulted person will draw on his various networks of kin relations to support him, thus adding to the cohesion and unity of the family group. In the village of Villagrande, a shepherd named Salvatore had shot and killed another shepherd in public because of a grave offesa against “his flock, his and his family’s interests, and consequently his honor and manhood (Salzman p.49).” This began a vendetta between Salvatore’s family and that of the murdered shepherd. The dead man’s kin ambushed and killed Salvatore’s brother Antonio and attempted to murder their other brother, Mario, as well. A later murder, that of Giuseppe Rubiu, was attributed to the clan of Antonio and Salvatore, in response to Antonio’s murder and following the cycle of the vendetta (Salzman p. 51).
In close-knit groups, feelings of hostility tend to accumulate and to intensify, due to pent-up feelings that have not been allowed release, and also due to the total personality involvement of group members (Kivisto p. 201). In highland Sardinian society, people are expected to be sociable, and to fully involve themselves in the community. Avoidance of others and solitary living is considered a sign of illness (Salzman p. 43). The villages also tend to be of a relatively small size, generally not more than a few thousand people. Therefore the society is a very close-knit one, wherein everyone knows everyone else. This is one of the factors in why the vendette and vengeance acts tend to be so violent (murder, burning down property, etc). Those involved in the vendetta participate with their entire being, a total personality involvement.
This is also a factor in why the highlanders, who believe quite strongly in their autonomy from the centralized Italian government, take such violent recourse (bombings, shottings, and arson on a nearly daily basis) against officials from that government, whom they see as invasive and destructive to their society. These government officials interfere with the traditional way of life, the traditional mores and norms of the highlanders, so the highlanders retaliate by excluding the officials from their society (social isolation), and by inflicting the same violence that the government officials try to abolish on the stations, cars, homes and persons of those same officials.
Highland Sardinian society has set and inflexible rules of conduct. Highland countrymen must act “with balentia, courage, skill, and astuteness, and be capable of resolving even the riskiest situation (Salzman p. 50).” Pursuit of a vendetta to avenge an offesa is a mandatory duty. In order to avoid vendette and faide (feuds), Sardinian highlanders keep silent and mind their own business (negare ferru ferru). “Balentia, vendetta, faida, and silence are the law of the highlands that have for millennia structured conflict and served to impose an order of balanced opposition and fear... (Salzmna p. 50).” These rules are followed or the community views the deviant individual as abnormal, as expressed by those who do not follow the norm of maintaining social relations, or the community ostracizes the deviant as they do with the government officials.
Another form of conflict that tends to reinforce social solidarity is kidnappings. When Giuseppe Vinci was kidnapped, his wife Sharon used public demonstrations, such as torchlight processions and hanging out white sheets to show solidarity with the kidnapped, as part of her efforts to gain her husband’s release (simply paying the ransom is illegal in Italy). The conflict between the Vincis and the kidnappers (who were generally seen as the shepherds, the transhumant noi pastori who are external to the village community) reinforced the solidarity and cohesion of the village as a group.
On the other hand, banditry and kidnapping can be seen as mechanisms of enforcing social solidarity and cohesion among both the village group and the group of outlaws. These activities target the wealthy, who have things worth stealing and can afford a hefty ransom payment. The wealthy are seen as having stolen from the less fortunate, and are disruptive to the equality and therefore the cohesion of the highland community (Salzman p. 67). Therefore they are fair game for banditry such as robbery and livestock rustling, as well as kidnapping. The resdistribution of wealth after a ransom payment is made (very rarely is a kidnapping carried out successfully bu only one person, so the payment must be split a number of ways) can be considered a leveling mechanism to reinforce equality in the community as well as cohesion within the group of kidnappers. This type of activity also reinforces solidarity between the bandits, who want to keep their loot and in whose best interests it is therefore to keep up good relations with each other. One village did not hang out any white sheets in support of Sharon Vinci and in fact had anti-Vinci and pro-kidnapper graffiti in the village, probably because the residents knew the kidnappers were from their community (Salzman p. 69). The village as a whole stood behind their outlaws against the Vincis.
Coser’s conflict theory works within the structure of the feuds, vendetta, and code of honor of the highland Sardinians. When someone breaks from the “balanced oppostion and fear” (Salzman p. 50), conflict in the form of traditional vendette returns the system to its equilibrium by releasing hostilities. Conflicts between family groups, expressed in vendette, involve the total personalities of the antagonists because of the basic community structure of highland society; that is, the nuclear family and kin network as a primary point of reference for dealing with the outside world. The conflict is external to the nuclear family and so is more intense than internal conflict, in agreement with Coser’s theory.