Enmity then empathy: How militarisation facilitated collaborative but exclusive exchange in Sierra Leone's Ebola response

Abstract

In the autumn of 2014, with the 2013–16 West Africa Ebola epidemic spiralling out of control, the United Kingdom announced a bespoke military mission to support—and in some ways lead—numerous Ebola response functions in Sierra Leone. This study examines the nature and effect of the civil-military relationships that subsequently developed between civilian and military Ebola response workers (ERWs). In total, 110 interviews were conducted with key involved actors, and the findings were analysed by drawing on the neo-Durkheimian theory of organisations. This paper finds that stereotypical opposition between humanitarian and military actors helps to explain how and why there was initial cooperative and collaborative challenges. However, all actors were found to have similar hierarchical structures and operations, which explains how and why they were later able to cooperate and collaborate effectively. It also explains how and why civilian ERWs might have served to exclude and further marginalise some local actors.