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- Convenors:
-
Peter Chonka
(King's College London)
Jutta Bakonyi (Durham University)
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- Stream:
- Social Anthropology
- Location:
- Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 4
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 12 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel seeks to bring together papers that empirically explore the multiple ways in which violent conflicts and related external interventions are shaping the growth of African cities and everday experiences of city dwellers.
Long Abstract:
Forced and conflict-related displacement has short and long-term impacts on patterns of growth of African cities. New forms of camp-urbanisation appear to be emerging and this has drawn the attention of international humanitarian organisations. Humanitarian interventions that acknowledge the specificity of urban conflicts and post conflict urban planning have become key topics on the agenda of development. In many (post-) conflict cities humanitarian actors collaborate with sovereigns to find solutions to what are now framed as 'new urban problems'. New forms of urban planning emerge and shape the ways cities are governed, their infrastructures, security installations, or (re-)settlement schemes. Urban political, social and economic relations are affected by these processes, and cities may even become more central for competing (armed and unarmed) actors as their symbolic and material value increases.
Considering both the disruptions and connections associated with violent conflicts and wars, this panel seeks to bring together papers that empirically explore the multiple ways in which violent conflicts and related external interventions are shaping the growth of cities and the experiences of city dwellers. We invite papers that focus on the everyday of urban growth and in-migration, and the ways city expansion and in-migration are governed, often by multiple actors that operate simultaneously on different spatial scales. We also invite comparative studies, or studies that outline regional trends and wider connections between conflict urbanisation and the (world) market or with global forms of governance. The organisers welcome multi and interdisciplinary contributions that provide in-depth single case studies or comparative analyses of city dynamics in conflicts.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
Based on more than ten years of fieldwork in the Kivu provinces, this paper analyses the complex relationship between war and urban transformation in the DRC. Both the growth of existing cities as well as the emergence of semi-urban boomtowns will be explored as the outcome of violent conflict.
Paper long abstract:
Based on more than ten years of qualitative fieldwork in North and South Kivu, this paper analyses the complex relationship between war and urban transformation in the DRC. I will draw on three case studies (Goma, Numbi and Kitchanga) to demonstrate different urban outcomes at the intersection of violence, humanitarianism and forced displacement. These case studies cover diverse forms of emerging urbanity in a context of protracted civil war and they analyse both the growth of existing, larger cities as well as the emergence of so-called 'boomtowns' will be explored. Everyday forms of urban agency by a wide range of urban actors (state administrators, IDPs, rebels, traders, humanitarian staff, youth associations) form the starting point of this analysis. I will argue that to understand 'conflict urbanisation' in the DRC, urbanisation should be understood not only as a demographic, socio-economic and spatial processes, but in the first place as a deeply political process.
Paper short abstract:
In Nigeria urban settlements have grown directly from conflicts resulting from sectarian purity and social exclusion.Two of these new urban areas are direct results of efforts to resolve conflicts. The problem persists because no problem can be solved with the same knowledge that produced it.
Paper long abstract:
Theorists of urbanization anticipate certain commonalities among cities, some of which include secondary-group relationships and secularisation. The paper provides evidence that these factors are usually absent or are tenuous in urbanisation in south-eastern and north-western Nigeria. In-groups are, instead, defined in terms of a melange of religion and ethnicity. This conflation of religion and ethnicity leads to continual eruption of violence occasioning huge losses of life and property. Immigrants from the mostly Muslim northern provenance live in the suburbs called garki, and those from the south (mainly Christians) living in northern cities are in similar concentrations called sabon geri. New urban settlements have grown directly from the conflicts resulting from such social exclusion. I use examples from four cities to illustrate this. Two of those are the direct results of efforts to resolve the conflicts. I will suggest that the intractability of the problem is traceable to attempts to solve it using sectarian purity and social exclusion. A problem cannot be solved with the same knowledge that produced it. It seems in the Nigerian case that for the problem to be solved an ideology that de-emphasizes sectarian purity and social exclusion must be brought in. The paper is the result of a participant observation that I began in 2001 supported by readings of archival and library materials.
Paper short abstract:
This paper looks at the position of displaced female Cameroonians since the commencement of agitations for southern Cameroon's statehood otherwise known as the Republic of Ambazonia. It also investigates the strategies adopted in order to cope either adequately or otherwise in the new communities.
Paper long abstract:
War and conflicts are some of the major factors responsible for migration and social disruption. This is because the people whose communities have become theatre of war will seek refuge in another space or community they consider peaceful. Due to continuous migration into perceived peaceful communities numerous economic, social and political issues are bound to surface. Chiefly among them are overpopulation, rise in the cost of food, housing and other sundry needs. Since the year 2017 more than 1million Anglophone Cameroonians have been displaced from their homes and found supposedly refuge in Francophone Cameroon where many of them are being discriminated upon in the areas of medical provision, education, accommodation and so on. This paper looks at the position of displaced female Anglophone Cameroonians since the commencement of agitations for southern Cameroon's statehood otherwise known as the Republic of Ambazonia. It also investigates the strategies adopted in order to cope either adequately or otherwise in the new communities. It argues that conflict induced in-migration within Cameroon has placed the migrants especially women at the mercy of their hostile hosts who in many cases refuse to rent an apartment to them or demand huge sum of money for it.
Paper short abstract:
Central African Republic, Seleka, insecurity, housing, food, newcomers, Cameroon, Garoua Boulai.
Paper long abstract:
In recent years, the disruptive effects of armed conflict in Central African Republic (CAR) have been felt in the country's western borders with Cameroon. The irruption of Seleka rebellion in December 2012, the surge of the anti-balaka militias and the ousting of Seleka from the central government in January 2014 have intensified the long-term insecurity that has marked cross-border relations. New waves of refugees have since then joined earlier Central African refugee communities. This paper focuses on the transformations experienced by the town on the Cameroonian side of border at one of the main crossing points for people and goods between the two countries: Garoua Boulaï. In this humanitarian hotspot, the provision of housing, food, health and education for the newcomers has required a humanitarian response, including the creation of a camp near town and several other camps in the area. The peak of the crisis also entailed a boom of commercial activity, a steep rise in the cost of living, and increased competition for urban land. Garoua Boulaï has in this period also strengthened its role as a hub in the Douala-Bangui transport corridor. Based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork over the last decade, my paper gives attention to the effects on urban dynamics of the ongoing investment in infrastructure (the municipal lorry parking yard, warehouses, a new border market, a one-stop-border post) and the arrival of new institutional actors, humanitarian and non-humanitarian alike, and their engagement with existing actors in a context of fragmented public authority.