Hostageship: What can we learn from Mauss?
| Author | Ariel Colonomos |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088217751513 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088217751513
Journal of International Political Theory
2018, Vol. 14(2) 240 –256
© The Author(s) 2018
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1755088217751513
journals.sagepub.com/home/ipt
Hostageship: What can
we learn from Mauss?
Ariel Colonomos
Sciences Po, France
Abstract
Hostages have become an important political and security issue in the context of conflicts
in the Middle East and in Africa. The work of Marcel Mauss helps us to shed a new light
on this phenomenon, which today is portrayed in negative terms as a major violation
of fundamental universal rights such as the right to liberty. In The Gift, however, Mauss
refers to the granting of hostages as “acts of generosity.” In line with Mauss’ approach,
I consider hostageship as a “total social phenomenon,” combining politics, law, and
economics, in both domestic and global settings, which reveals structural political and
social questions that need to be addressed. The article highlights the role that hostages
fulfilled as “gifts” in premodern international relations when hostages were granted and
not taken as they are today. I underline the role they notably performed as elements
of proto-diplomacy. I show the reasons why the function of hostages has changed over
time by underlining the importance of the later Middle Ages as a transitional moment.
Finally, I discuss the issue of contemporary hostageship from a normative perspective,
arguing along with Mauss, against an interest-based utilitarian vision of hostageship and
in favor of a solidarist approach to hostage crises.
Keywords
al-Qaeda, commensurability, ethics, hostages, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, just war
tradition, Mauss, utilitarianism
Introduction
Hostage taking has today become common practice in the context of conflicts in the
Middle East and in Africa. Over the last years, a significant number of citizens from both
Western and non-Western states have been abducted by groups such as al-Qaeda, Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or Boko Haram. Hostage taking has become one of the
Corresponding author:
Ariel Colonomos, CNRS-CERI, Sciences Po, 56, rue Jacob, 75006 Paris, France.
Email: ariel.colonomos@sciencespo.fr
751513IPT0010.1177/1755088217751513Journal of International Political TheoryColonomos
research-article2018
Article
Colonomos 241
tools transnational violent organizations use when they want to display their power of
nuisance in international politics (Colonomos, 2016). It has also become a global market
where human lives are traded at a price that varies according to their status and national-
ity (Carbonnier, 2015: 108–112). We now tend to think about hostage taking as an unlaw-
ful act that violent non-state actors or those who are said to be terrorists perform in order
to coerce and blackmail states or those people and groups (companies, families) who
usually belong to states that abide by the law and where individuals have rights. Hostage
taking is largely considered a violation of universal rights such as the right to liberty
(Colonomos, 2017; Weill, 2014). It is a violation of human rights and international
humanitarian law.1 Apart from that, it is a violation of customary international law
(Dinstein, 2004), as well as a major violation of the laws of war according to contempo-
rary just war theory (Meisels, 2017: 200–216). Hostage taking is the object of a specific
treaty.2 It is also a violation of domestic law in many countries. It is a pain inflicted in
order to punish someone for the crimes attributed to other people. This makes it legally
and ethically difficult, if not impossible to justify.
But is this the only way to understand the social, political, and moral meaning of hos-
tage taking? To what extent can the work of Marcel Mauss help us to shed a new light on
this phenomenon? In order to address this question and therefore to better understand the
meaning of hostage taking as a social phenomenon, it is important to put hostageship,
that is, the condition of being held as a surety for a pledge, into a historical and cultural
perspective, and, indeed, Mauss encourages us to pursue this intellectual endeavor. In his
major work The Gift, Mauss refers to the role hostages played in medieval political cul-
ture. Especially in the Germanic tradition of the Middle Ages, Mauss (2002 [1925])
writes, hostages were considered “gifts”:
Clans within tribes, great extended families within the clans, tribes between themselves, chiefs
and even kings, were not confined morally and economically to the closed circles of their own
groups; and links, alliances and mutual assistance came into being by means of the pledge, the
hostage and the feast or other acts of generosity. (p. 78)
In what follows, I argue that this historical perspective helps us better understand the
practice of contemporary hostage taking. It also informs us about what could be the most
appropriate contemporary responses to this practice. This is consistent with the approach
of Mauss, who uses examples from what he calls “archaic societies” in order to better
understand and judge the politics and the social values of our own time. Mauss’ approach
grounded in the social sciences has a normative dimension, as Mauss criticizes the move
away from the “gift” tradition. In this article, I also use social sciences as well as a brief
summary of the history of hostageship and its perception in order to make a normative
claim. I argue not only for a banning of hostageship in international relations but also for
an obligation to try to achieve compromises with hostage takers in order to set free the
hostages. I use Mauss in order to analyze a norm of international politics both from an
empirical and a normative perspective.
Also, very much in line with Mauss’ approach, I consider hostageship as a “total
social phenomenon” which raises structural political and social questions that need to be
addressed. Hostageship is a total social phenomenon where “everything intermingles,”
To continue reading
Request your trial