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African Conflicts and Informal Power
In the aftermath of an armed conflict in Africa, the international community both produces and demands from local partners a variety of blueprints for reconstructing state and society. The aim is to re-formalize the state after what is viewed as a period of fragmentation. In reality, African economies and polities are very much informal in character, with informal actors, including so-called Big Men, often using their positions in the formal structure as a means to reach their own goals. Through a variety of in-depth case studies, including the DRC, Sierra Leone and Liberia, this comprehensive volume shows how important informal political and economic networks are in many of the continent’s conflict areas. Moreover, it demonstrates that without a proper understanding of the impact of these networks, attempts to formalize African states, particularly those emerging from wars, will be in vain.
Private Security in Africa
Across Africa, growing economic inequality, instability and urbanization have led to the rapid spread of private security providers. While these PSPs have already had a significant impact on African societies, their impact has so far received little in the way of comprehensive analysis. Drawing on a wide range of disciplinary approaches, and encompassing anthropology, sociology and political science, Private Security in Africa offers unique insight into the lives and experiences of security providers and those affected by them, as well as into the fragile state context which has allowed them to thrive. Featuring original empirical research and case studies ranging from private policing in South Africa to the recruitment of Sierra Leoneans for private security work in Iraq, the book considers the full implications of PSPs for security and the state, not only for Africa but for the world as a whole.
Years of Conflict
Recent years have witnessed a significant growth of interest in the consequences of political violence and displacement for the young. However, when speaking of "children" commentators have often taken the situation of those in early and middle childhood as representative of all young people under eighteen years of age. As a consequence, the specific situation of adolescents negotiating the processes of transition towards social adulthood amidst conditions of violence and displacement is commonly overlooked. Years of Conflict provides a much-needed corrective. Drawing upon perspectives from anthropology, psychology, and media studies as well as the insights of those involved in programmatic ...
Sweet Battlefields
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Children and Youth on the Front Line
This series reflects the multidisciplinary nature of the field and includes within its scope international law, anthropology, medicine, geopolitics, social psychology and economics.
Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood
This book focuses on the lives and experiences of young people in Africa. On agents who, willingly or unwillingly, see themselves as belonging to the socio-generational category of youth and the ways in which they seek to shape and unfold their lives in a positive manner. Rather than seeing youth as either a social or cultural entity in itself, or as a predefined life-stage, the book argues for an exploration of how youth position themselves and are positioned within generational categories. In studying young people, social scientists must conceptualise youth as both social being and social becoming; a position in movement. It is from the duality of being positioned and seeking oneâ__s own socio-generational position that this book engages in the debate on contemporary African youth. The chapters are based on ethnographic research across the African continent and provide in-depth analyses of the perceptions, positions, possibilities, and practices of diverse groups of young people. The book will be of value to scholars and students of African studies and social science interested in this major, yet marginalized, social category in contemporary Africa.
Ex-Combatants and the Post-Conflict State
This book provides a critical analysis of the reintegration challenges facing ex-combatants. Based on extensive field research, it includes detailed case studies of ex-combatant reintegration in Namibia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
The War Machines
Based on ethnographic research among militias in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Danny Hoffman considers how young men are made available for violent labor on battlefields and in dangerous unregulated industries.
Former Extremists
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This collection is the first on ex-extremists and combatants (Formers) in violence prevention work. While the engagement of Formers in violence prevention programs--especially in the context of countering and preventing violent extremism (P/CVE), and peacebuilding--has expanded across the world, their involvement has been controversial and contested. This volume captures a variety of work Formers are engaged in across a range of contexts, broadly divided into three ...
Violence, Political Culture & Development in Africa
Africa has witnessed a number of transitions to democracy in recent years. Coinciding with this upsurge in democratic transitions there also have been spectacular experiences of social disintegration. An alternative to discourses of the 'failed' and 'collapsed' state in Africa is an approach that takes seriously the complexity of historical processes, on which the political development of individual nation states was based. The chapters in this volume run in a continuum from discussions of 'warlord politics' to an understanding of the 'new wars' in Africa as outcomes of fundamental changes in social solidarity. Wars and violent conflicts in Africa can thus be understood as responses to econo...
