Social Control and Conflict Practice

Documented practices that enforce social norms or escalate conflict between groups: taboo, a prohibition whose violation carries automatic social or supernatural sanction, witchcraft accusation, a documented practice of attributing misfortune to malevolent supernatural agency and sanctioning the accused, and headhunting, a documented practice of ritualized intergroup violence in certain societies. Belongs here: a documented practice whose primary function is enforcing a norm or conducting intergroup conflict. Does not belong here: a formal governing institution that may also enforce norms, grouped under the institution type's own Political and Legal Institutions subcategory rather than here, this subcategory covering informal or ritual enforcement rather than formal governance.