Faced with the cruelty of men of God: ethnographic notes on violence, individuality and human sacrifices

Abstract

The objective of this text is to demonstrate that the understanding of the process of construction of violence in a human sacrifice implies the escape of explanations that define it, a priori, as formed only by a singular theological and religious character. The ethnographic approach proposes to identify the constitution of an entire disciplinary field aimed at understanding this violence, especially in the context of psychiatry, criminology and, also, a body of medico-legal notions of mental illness.