Mediation in a feuding society: an anthropological approach to the process of sasmos in contemporary Crete

Journal article

On the Greek island of Crete, a customary practice for mitigating hostility or conflict between two men continues to the present time. It survives mainly in local agricultural and pastoral communities and is called sasmos. The corresponding verb is siazo which means ‘pulling to taut (e.g., a wire or a string) which has been wrapped’. We adopt Herzfeld’s English translation of the term sasmos as ‘reconciliation’ (Herzfeld 1985: 72, 82-83, 285n). The men who intervene between the two opponents as ‘neutral third parties’ are termed mesites, ‘mediators’, or siahtes or siastades, two words having an identical meaning, very close to that of a ‘constructor, repairer’ of a social relation which has been disrupted. The mediators are always men, as are the parties in conflict, and the motivation for mediation is rooted in the ‘moral duty for the communal good’ as the locals claim, which means the prevention of the escalation of interpersonal hostility into an open conflict – crime and its revenge (vendetta) (Herzfeld 1985; Tsantiropoulos 2004, 2008, 2019). In this paper, we will first attempt a conceptual clarification of the three main components of mediation. The first are the sources of conflict and the types of conflict the mediators are involved in; the second is the social profile of the mediator, which provides the background for his views to be heard by the conflicting parties; and the third is the structure of mediation as a conflict resolution mechanism.

Authors: Chereji, C; Tsantiropoulos, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Anthropological Society
• Journal: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford
• Volume: 16
• Pages: 72-90
• Place of publication: Oxford
• Publication date: 2024-12-13
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-8gn597waw
• EISSN: 2040-1876
• Language: English
• Keywords: Catholicism; theology; JASO; anthropological theory; mysticism