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This book conceptualizes integration and conflict as interrelated dimensions of social interaction, social relationships and alliances, identifications and identity constructions within society at large. In order to reach an in-depth understanding of integrative and violent forms of interaction in the region of the Upper Guinea Coast, authors take into account the impact and repercussions of specific historical experiences as well as the continuities and changes of social patterns affected by the interaction of local and globalized values, institutions, and models of social organization. Rather than providing an(other) analysis of wars and violence as such, contributors aim at a better understanding of the social mechanisms that affect both the processes of integration and conflict at the local, national and regional levels.
Childhood Deployed examines the reintegration of former child soldiers in Sierra Leone. Based on eighteen months of participant-observer ethnographic fieldwork and ten years of follow-up research, the book argues that there is a fundamental disconnect between the Western idea of the child soldier and the individual lived experiences of the child soldiers of Sierra Leone. Susan Shepler contends that the reintegration of former child soldiers is a political process having to do with changing notions of childhood as one of the central structures of society. For most Westerners the tragedy of the idea of “child soldier” centers around perceptions of lost and violated innocence. In contrast, ...
This title focuses on the dramatic process underlying the development of cultural mystique in the articulation of elite organization. The symbolic beliefs and practices involved act to reconcile, camouflage, or mystify a major contradiction in the development and functioning of elite groups, a contradiction between their universalistic functions and particularistic interests, between their duties to serve wider publics and their simultaneous endeavor to promote their own sectional power. Concentrating on the detailed, experimental study of one power elite within a modern small-scale nation-state--Sierra Leone--Cohen analyzes these processes. But his findings are systematically worked out wit...
This book investigates gender equality and women’s empowerment in Sierra Leone, focusing especially on women’s interactions with the state and its development partners. In particular, it highlights women’s increasing agency in acquiring knowledge, diffusing power, engaging in grassroots politics, and compelling the government to adopt more gender-responsive policies. Exploiting extensive fieldwork and original multidisciplinary research methods (including econometric and statistical models), the book first sets out the history and impact of inequality in Sierra Leone, and then goes on to shed light on the constructive and collaborative engagement of women and the state on a variety of ...