Pub Date : 2022-09-03DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2122699
Priscyll Anctil Avoine
ABSTRACT Affect and friendship change the way we think about research (epistemology) and conduct research (methodology). This article accounts for affect and friendship as feminist methods in peace research. It argues that affective feminist conversations, practices and actions through friendship can drastically modify how we think about peace. Based on fieldwork conducted in Colombia (2019 and 2022) with female ex-guerrilleras from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (Farc-ep), it (1) draws upon the concepts of camaradería and being insurgent proposed by the women of the Farc-ep to (2) trace how affect and friendship can change the way we do peace research. Ultimately, the article proposes four aspects for the adoption of friendship as a method in peace research by: 1) deconstructing the linearity in peace research methods; 2) multiplying data collection’s methods; 3) including affects throughout the whole research process and 4) advocating for an insurgent peace research that vindicates long-term ‘transversal politics’ and translocal coalition-building.
{"title":"Insurgent peace research: affects, friendship and feminism as methods","authors":"Priscyll Anctil Avoine","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2122699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2122699","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Affect and friendship change the way we think about research (epistemology) and conduct research (methodology). This article accounts for affect and friendship as feminist methods in peace research. It argues that affective feminist conversations, practices and actions through friendship can drastically modify how we think about peace. Based on fieldwork conducted in Colombia (2019 and 2022) with female ex-guerrilleras from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (Farc-ep), it (1) draws upon the concepts of camaradería and being insurgent proposed by the women of the Farc-ep to (2) trace how affect and friendship can change the way we do peace research. Ultimately, the article proposes four aspects for the adoption of friendship as a method in peace research by: 1) deconstructing the linearity in peace research methods; 2) multiplying data collection’s methods; 3) including affects throughout the whole research process and 4) advocating for an insurgent peace research that vindicates long-term ‘transversal politics’ and translocal coalition-building.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"88 1 1","pages":"435 - 455"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85609531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-03DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2122698
Jaremey R. McMullin
ABSTRACT This article deploys the language, narratives and proposed solutions of research participants to conceptualise peace research as a representational and relational process of recognition. To do so, it draws from a multi-year research project on the economic livelihood and social integration strategies of conflict-affected youth in Liberia’s commercial motorcycling sector. Its starting point is reflexive engagement with participants’ own frequent question: ‘What is the benefit of this project?’ It advocates for participatory approaches to the time-spaces that ex-combatant and conflict-affected youth actually inhabit (rather than those scripted or desired for them by more traditional forms of peace research). It applies critical peace-building insights about time to contribute to conceptualisations of post-conflict ‘reintegration trajectories’ that question ideas about who builds peace, and how. It argues that participatory research brings issues of social stigma, objectification and marginalisation to the fore. And, it explores the methodological implications of participatory research, identifying the ways in which sited ethnography, relational interviewing and narrative approaches can centre research-as-recognition. Participatory approaches make peace researchable not just to collect lived experiences (treating research as transactional data collection) but to implement participants’ own ideas about peace-building strategies and solutions (treating peace research as relational recognition and something that is mutually beneficial).
{"title":"‘What is the benefit of this project?’ Representation and participation in research on conflict-affected youth","authors":"Jaremey R. McMullin","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2122698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2122698","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article deploys the language, narratives and proposed solutions of research participants to conceptualise peace research as a representational and relational process of recognition. To do so, it draws from a multi-year research project on the economic livelihood and social integration strategies of conflict-affected youth in Liberia’s commercial motorcycling sector. Its starting point is reflexive engagement with participants’ own frequent question: ‘What is the benefit of this project?’ It advocates for participatory approaches to the time-spaces that ex-combatant and conflict-affected youth actually inhabit (rather than those scripted or desired for them by more traditional forms of peace research). It applies critical peace-building insights about time to contribute to conceptualisations of post-conflict ‘reintegration trajectories’ that question ideas about who builds peace, and how. It argues that participatory research brings issues of social stigma, objectification and marginalisation to the fore. And, it explores the methodological implications of participatory research, identifying the ways in which sited ethnography, relational interviewing and narrative approaches can centre research-as-recognition. Participatory approaches make peace researchable not just to collect lived experiences (treating research as transactional data collection) but to implement participants’ own ideas about peace-building strategies and solutions (treating peace research as relational recognition and something that is mutually beneficial).","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"06 1","pages":"517 - 541"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86309593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-03DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2124847
Jenny Hedström, Elisabeth Olivius
ABSTRACT This article adds to the emerging ‘temporal turn’ in peace studies by addressing methodological questions about how temporality can be captured and explored in empirical studies. Developing our methodological tools for exploring time and temporality, we argue, is critical to move beyond the supposed linear temporality of peace processes, and make visible alternative temporal frameworks that shape everyday experiences and contestations around peace in conflict-affected contexts. Drawing on a study of two conflict-affected areas in Myanmar, we contribute towards this aim through a discussion of how life history diagrams helped us trace temporal conflicts between overarching narratives of political transition and everyday experiences of insecurity. This facilitated a deeper understanding of how relationships between war and peace, and between past, present and future, were manifested and made sense of in people’s everyday lives. Our use of life history diagrams revealed temporal conflicts between the dominant, linear temporality of the Myanmar transition, and more complex and cyclical temporal frameworks people used to describe their realities. Life history diagrams also facilitated narratives that troubled an events-based temporality focused on macro-political shifts such as ceasefire agreements and elections, and instead foregrounded everyday experiences of continuous insecurity and struggle.
{"title":"Tracing temporal conflicts in transitional Myanmar: life history diagrams as methodological tool","authors":"Jenny Hedström, Elisabeth Olivius","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2124847","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2124847","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article adds to the emerging ‘temporal turn’ in peace studies by addressing methodological questions about how temporality can be captured and explored in empirical studies. Developing our methodological tools for exploring time and temporality, we argue, is critical to move beyond the supposed linear temporality of peace processes, and make visible alternative temporal frameworks that shape everyday experiences and contestations around peace in conflict-affected contexts. Drawing on a study of two conflict-affected areas in Myanmar, we contribute towards this aim through a discussion of how life history diagrams helped us trace temporal conflicts between overarching narratives of political transition and everyday experiences of insecurity. This facilitated a deeper understanding of how relationships between war and peace, and between past, present and future, were manifested and made sense of in people’s everyday lives. Our use of life history diagrams revealed temporal conflicts between the dominant, linear temporality of the Myanmar transition, and more complex and cyclical temporal frameworks people used to describe their realities. Life history diagrams also facilitated narratives that troubled an events-based temporality focused on macro-political shifts such as ceasefire agreements and elections, and instead foregrounded everyday experiences of continuous insecurity and struggle.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"154 1","pages":"495 - 515"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86042167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-03DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2123218
J. Söderström, Elisabeth Olivius
ABSTRACT Scholarly debates about how we conceptualise, theorise and measure peace have recently intensified, yet exactly how peace scholars translate these theoretical innovations into concrete methodological tools and practices is less clear. We argue that pluralism, temporality and the role of affect are three recent focal points in current scholarly debates that aim to further our conceptual understanding of peace. Taking these theoretical developments seriously requires us to consider our methodological tools to approach each one, but these concepts also point to methodological issues on their own. This special issue aims to investigate our assumptions about peace, and how these in turn shape the way we approach the study of peace, in terms of both research design and data collection as well as in the process of writing up and disseminating findings, all departing from these three specific challenges. As such, this special issue contributes to efforts of making peace beyond the absence of war more researchable.
{"title":"Pluralism, temporality and affect – methodological challenges of making peace researchable","authors":"J. Söderström, Elisabeth Olivius","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2123218","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2123218","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Scholarly debates about how we conceptualise, theorise and measure peace have recently intensified, yet exactly how peace scholars translate these theoretical innovations into concrete methodological tools and practices is less clear. We argue that pluralism, temporality and the role of affect are three recent focal points in current scholarly debates that aim to further our conceptual understanding of peace. Taking these theoretical developments seriously requires us to consider our methodological tools to approach each one, but these concepts also point to methodological issues on their own. This special issue aims to investigate our assumptions about peace, and how these in turn shape the way we approach the study of peace, in terms of both research design and data collection as well as in the process of writing up and disseminating findings, all departing from these three specific challenges. As such, this special issue contributes to efforts of making peace beyond the absence of war more researchable.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"305 1","pages":"411 - 433"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79828580","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-03DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2131375
M. Pepper
ABSTRACT It has become widely acknowledged by scholars and practitioners that women’s participation in peace-building is essential to building sustainable, inclusive peace. The question remains, however, what is ‘women’s participation’ in practical terms? What does it look like? What does it feel like? Following feminist scholarship that has argued for attention to the politics of emotion in International Relations, I call for an emotion-aware approach to thinking about women’s participation in peace-building and the recognition that emotion has real, material effects on how women participate and the impact of their participation. Drawing on fieldwork experience in Burma and on the Thailand-Burma border I reflect on the process of asking such questions and the possibilities of taking affect seriously in the study of peace. What emerges from this reflection is a methodological consideration that centres emotion and recognises it as simultaneously politically meaningful and gendered. Exploration of the challenges of such an approach grounds this contribution in the realities of data collection and interpretation in the field, while also demonstrating the richness that emerges from such inquiry.
{"title":"The possibilities of studying affect to illuminate women’s contributions to peace","authors":"M. Pepper","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2131375","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2131375","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT It has become widely acknowledged by scholars and practitioners that women’s participation in peace-building is essential to building sustainable, inclusive peace. The question remains, however, what is ‘women’s participation’ in practical terms? What does it look like? What does it feel like? Following feminist scholarship that has argued for attention to the politics of emotion in International Relations, I call for an emotion-aware approach to thinking about women’s participation in peace-building and the recognition that emotion has real, material effects on how women participate and the impact of their participation. Drawing on fieldwork experience in Burma and on the Thailand-Burma border I reflect on the process of asking such questions and the possibilities of taking affect seriously in the study of peace. What emerges from this reflection is a methodological consideration that centres emotion and recognises it as simultaneously politically meaningful and gendered. Exploration of the challenges of such an approach grounds this contribution in the realities of data collection and interpretation in the field, while also demonstrating the richness that emerges from such inquiry.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"79 1","pages":"543 - 566"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85957448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-03DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2138697
B. Thorne
ABSTRACT This article’s central focus is on exploring the interplays between plurality and methodological approaches in peace research, through engaging with insights from arts methods and participatory action research (PAR). Specifically, engaging with these insights suggests that they have significant potential to aid plural dialogue, intergenerational memory, and young people’s active participation in post-conflict communities, and thus can further extend understandings of plurality in peace research. Furthermore, the article proposes that this creative and participatory methodology can contribute to three central parts of plurality in peace research, namely, facilitation, ‘voice’, and intergenerational participation. This article also draws connections between arts methods, PAR, and decolonising knowledge production, specifically in relation to peace research attempting to prioritise local forms of knowledge production. In doing so, the article also critically reflects on some of the challenges and limitations of this methodological approach and attempts at decolonising knowledge production in peace research. The article, engaging with illustrated examples of arts methods, argues that this methodological approach to peace research allows individuals and groups to understand multiple past experiences and events, can allow for a shared acknowledgement of frictional experiences of these events, and aid young people’s participation in conversations about the present and future.
{"title":"The art of plurality: participation, voice, and plural memories of community peace","authors":"B. Thorne","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2138697","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2138697","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article’s central focus is on exploring the interplays between plurality and methodological approaches in peace research, through engaging with insights from arts methods and participatory action research (PAR). Specifically, engaging with these insights suggests that they have significant potential to aid plural dialogue, intergenerational memory, and young people’s active participation in post-conflict communities, and thus can further extend understandings of plurality in peace research. Furthermore, the article proposes that this creative and participatory methodology can contribute to three central parts of plurality in peace research, namely, facilitation, ‘voice’, and intergenerational participation. This article also draws connections between arts methods, PAR, and decolonising knowledge production, specifically in relation to peace research attempting to prioritise local forms of knowledge production. In doing so, the article also critically reflects on some of the challenges and limitations of this methodological approach and attempts at decolonising knowledge production in peace research. The article, engaging with illustrated examples of arts methods, argues that this methodological approach to peace research allows individuals and groups to understand multiple past experiences and events, can allow for a shared acknowledgement of frictional experiences of these events, and aid young people’s participation in conversations about the present and future.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"190 1","pages":"567 - 588"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83058731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-03DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2122697
Claske Dijkema
ABSTRACT How can researchers do more than ‘do no harm’ and have a positive impact in the contexts in which they intervene? These are classic questions of PAR, which also apply to peace research. How can research practice contribute to peace? There is an intimate relationship between power, violence and silence. Hence, working with subalternised voices, subject to epistemic violence, poses a methodological challenge for social sciences in which words are data. This paper presents a research method that allows for constructive confrontation in contexts of terrorist violence in European cities, generally considered to be at peace. This method consists of organising public debate in collaboration with community organisations in a neighbourhood directly affected by the aftermath of a wave of terrorist attacks in France. In the case of the Université Populaire, the organisation of public debates allowed for the public expression of agonism, and was a source of hope and prefigurative politics. Exploring this case, this article contributes to discussions about how to deal with the challenges of pluralism within current peace research.
{"title":"Creating space for agonism: making room for subalternised voices in peace research","authors":"Claske Dijkema","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2122697","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2122697","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT How can researchers do more than ‘do no harm’ and have a positive impact in the contexts in which they intervene? These are classic questions of PAR, which also apply to peace research. How can research practice contribute to peace? There is an intimate relationship between power, violence and silence. Hence, working with subalternised voices, subject to epistemic violence, poses a methodological challenge for social sciences in which words are data. This paper presents a research method that allows for constructive confrontation in contexts of terrorist violence in European cities, generally considered to be at peace. This method consists of organising public debate in collaboration with community organisations in a neighbourhood directly affected by the aftermath of a wave of terrorist attacks in France. In the case of the Université Populaire, the organisation of public debates allowed for the public expression of agonism, and was a source of hope and prefigurative politics. Exploring this case, this article contributes to discussions about how to deal with the challenges of pluralism within current peace research.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"23 1","pages":"475 - 494"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83603895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-03DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2122696
I. Bramsen, J. Austin
ABSTRACT Methodologically, Peace Research has long been dominated by words, numbers, and sometimes images. This article suggests also integrating Video Data Analysis (VDA) into the analytical toolbox of Peace Research so as to explore the potential of the millions of videos of relevance for the study of peace and conflict that can be found online and beyond. The article introduces VDA and shows how the method can be applied to analyse micro-dynamics of phenomena such as violence, conflict, mediation, and peacebuilding. Videos enable researchers to observe events that no or few researchers would otherwise have access to from their armchairs, integrating the attentiveness to interaction and atmosphere that only ethnographers would have. While losing the ethnographer’s benefit of ‘being there’, videos allow researchers to replay events in slow motion and thus capture subtle dynamics of timing, interaction, and affect. The article discusses the epistemological challenges, ethical dilemmas, and future promises of applying VDA in Peace Research and provides concrete examples of how the observation of affects reflected in body postures and facial expressions, as well as the social bonds reflected in the rhythm and content of interaction, can be of value in peace research.
{"title":"Affects, emotions and interaction: the methodological promise of video data analysis in peace research","authors":"I. Bramsen, J. Austin","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2122696","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2122696","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Methodologically, Peace Research has long been dominated by words, numbers, and sometimes images. This article suggests also integrating Video Data Analysis (VDA) into the analytical toolbox of Peace Research so as to explore the potential of the millions of videos of relevance for the study of peace and conflict that can be found online and beyond. The article introduces VDA and shows how the method can be applied to analyse micro-dynamics of phenomena such as violence, conflict, mediation, and peacebuilding. Videos enable researchers to observe events that no or few researchers would otherwise have access to from their armchairs, integrating the attentiveness to interaction and atmosphere that only ethnographers would have. While losing the ethnographer’s benefit of ‘being there’, videos allow researchers to replay events in slow motion and thus capture subtle dynamics of timing, interaction, and affect. The article discusses the epistemological challenges, ethical dilemmas, and future promises of applying VDA in Peace Research and provides concrete examples of how the observation of affects reflected in body postures and facial expressions, as well as the social bonds reflected in the rhythm and content of interaction, can be of value in peace research.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"14 1","pages":"457 - 473"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85195890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2120256
Adeyemi S. Badewa
ABSTRACT Regional development and stability in many parts of the Global South is threatened by violent conflicts – deep-rooted in complex ‘geo-politico-economic challenges’. This reflects the causality of Boko Haram threats and security-development crises in the Sahel. To extrapolate the patterns of insecurity and their effects on peace and development in the region, a thematic analysis of empirical and secondary data was conducted using the Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT). This expatiates on the role of actors, geopolitics (external) interventions, the environment, and resources in the Sahel’s complex security-development milieu. The study deduced that escalation of conflicts and negative consequences of interventions exacerbate states’ fragility and human insecurity, amidst displacement, destruction, and impairment of livelihoods and regional resilience capacities across the Sahel. Therefore, it recommends a holistic regional security-development mechanism, that is evidence-based, to sustainably address the root causes and effects of Sahel’s insecurity and socio-economic predicaments.
{"title":"Regional security complex: The Boko Haram menace and socio-economic development crises in the Sahel","authors":"Adeyemi S. Badewa","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2120256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2120256","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Regional development and stability in many parts of the Global South is threatened by violent conflicts – deep-rooted in complex ‘geo-politico-economic challenges’. This reflects the causality of Boko Haram threats and security-development crises in the Sahel. To extrapolate the patterns of insecurity and their effects on peace and development in the region, a thematic analysis of empirical and secondary data was conducted using the Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT). This expatiates on the role of actors, geopolitics (external) interventions, the environment, and resources in the Sahel’s complex security-development milieu. The study deduced that escalation of conflicts and negative consequences of interventions exacerbate states’ fragility and human insecurity, amidst displacement, destruction, and impairment of livelihoods and regional resilience capacities across the Sahel. Therefore, it recommends a holistic regional security-development mechanism, that is evidence-based, to sustainably address the root causes and effects of Sahel’s insecurity and socio-economic predicaments.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"1 1","pages":"321 - 343"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84356354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-04DOI: 10.1080/14678802.2022.2122695
Promise Frank Ejiofor
ABSTRACT Since 2011, the Sahel has been bedevilled by insecurity spawned by communal strife, social fragmentation, and religious extremism. Some of the security conundrums in the region are perpetrated by some pastoralists who have turned criminals and established strong ties with terrorist groups such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Boko Haram. Whilst the reasons for the emergence of militant jihadism have been largely explored in the vast corpus on terrorism, less attention has been devoted to understanding-cum-explaining the reasons pastoralists take up arms and join terrorist groups. The few scholarly publications on the problematic posit that the reasons for pastoralists’ resort to terrorism in the region lie in political ecology and pastoralist populism. In this article, I contend that these dominant explanations sidestep the socioeconomic context within which pastoralists struggle to eke out a bare existence as well as the varied everyday abuses perpetrated by state and non-state actors against pastoralists. Drawing on the relative deprivation conceptual framework advanced by the American political scientist Ted Gurr, I argue that pastoralists join terrorist groups because they perceive discrepancies between their past and present socioeconomic condition but also as a consequence of marginalisation and everyday abuses against pastoralists. I illustrate the pastoralism-terrorism nexus with the crucial case of Nigeria―Africa’s most populous state and largest economy.
自2011年以来,萨赫勒地区一直被社区冲突、社会分裂和宗教极端主义所引发的不安全所困扰。该地区的一些安全难题是由一些牧民造成的,他们已经变成了罪犯,并与恐怖组织建立了密切的联系,如Jama 'at Nusrat al-Islam - muslim (JNIM)、大撒哈拉伊斯兰国(ISGS)、伊斯兰国西非省(ISWAP)和博科圣地。虽然关于恐怖主义的大量文献对激进圣战主义出现的原因进行了大量的探讨,但对牧民拿起武器加入恐怖组织的原因的理解和解释却很少受到关注。少数关于这一问题的学术出版物认为,该地区牧民诉诸恐怖主义的原因在于政治生态和牧民民粹主义。在这篇文章中,我认为这些主流的解释回避了社会经济背景,牧民在其中挣扎着勉强生存,以及国家和非国家行为体对牧民犯下的各种日常虐待。根据美国政治学家泰德·古尔(Ted Gurr)提出的相对剥夺概念框架,我认为牧民加入恐怖组织,是因为他们意识到自己过去和现在的社会经济状况存在差异,但也是由于边缘化和对牧民的日常虐待。我以尼日利亚这个非洲人口最多的国家和最大的经济体为例来说明畜牧业与恐怖主义之间的联系。
{"title":"‘We don’t have anything’: understanding the interaction between pastoralism and terrorism in Nigeria","authors":"Promise Frank Ejiofor","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2022.2122695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2022.2122695","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Since 2011, the Sahel has been bedevilled by insecurity spawned by communal strife, social fragmentation, and religious extremism. Some of the security conundrums in the region are perpetrated by some pastoralists who have turned criminals and established strong ties with terrorist groups such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Boko Haram. Whilst the reasons for the emergence of militant jihadism have been largely explored in the vast corpus on terrorism, less attention has been devoted to understanding-cum-explaining the reasons pastoralists take up arms and join terrorist groups. The few scholarly publications on the problematic posit that the reasons for pastoralists’ resort to terrorism in the region lie in political ecology and pastoralist populism. In this article, I contend that these dominant explanations sidestep the socioeconomic context within which pastoralists struggle to eke out a bare existence as well as the varied everyday abuses perpetrated by state and non-state actors against pastoralists. Drawing on the relative deprivation conceptual framework advanced by the American political scientist Ted Gurr, I argue that pastoralists join terrorist groups because they perceive discrepancies between their past and present socioeconomic condition but also as a consequence of marginalisation and everyday abuses against pastoralists. I illustrate the pastoralism-terrorism nexus with the crucial case of Nigeria―Africa’s most populous state and largest economy.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"180 2 1","pages":"345 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83525071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}