Actants, Actors, and Combat Units. The problem of conflict revisited: a semio-cultural viewpoint

The aim of this article is to discuss the question of conflict and
war from a semio-cultural point of view. Starting from a tentative
definition of war and conflict as the“borders” of a culture (even
if in a paradoxical way), I shall discuss the specific links between
war, conflict and narrative models. Secondly, the paper discusses
diverse positions on the “polemogenic” mechanisms operating
within cultures, along with their conflictual processes, such as the
escalades. Starting from the work of Lotman, and intertwining
his thought with concepts deriving from social systems theories,
I shall discuss some hypothesis about “symmetry” and “asymmetry”
inside cultures, and related questions concerning the growing
of conflictual identities as perceived by the involved actors. This
last point is tackled through case-studies from recent wars (such
as civil and ethnic wars in former Yugoslavia) and the examination
of their discursive devices.