Conflict and its causes: inter-community conflict.

We turn now to the third type of conflict, which coexisted in Corsica with intrafamilial conflict and with conflict between families. In order to understand conflict between communities, it is necessary first to know what constituted a community and how strongly the sense of community was expressed. Some writers have stressed the lack of association in Corsica at the village and higher levels in the face of family loyalty, individualism and patronage, while others have emphasized the force of local solidarity. The truth is that both centripetal and centrifugal forces, tendencies towards unity and towards separation or segmentation, complemented each other in a variety of ways. Conflict between communities, moreover, was only one way in which community was demonstrated and reinforced. More generally, community found expression in the physical lay-out of villages, and in political, economic, social and ritual terms. First and perhaps most obviously, Corsican villages were isolated by the nature of the island's mountainous terrain. They were situated in high valleys, on the slopes of foothills and on spurs. Sometimes they were clustered together, as in the Tallano; and they had been grouped together for ecclesiastical and administrative purposes in parishes or pievi in the pre-Revolutionary period, but, although such ties might be important, villages within sight of each other could be hours apart on foot and unconnected by roads, while rivalries and fission within pievi were constant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]