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- Convenors:
-
Lidewyde Berckmoes
(African Studies Centre Leiden)
Bert Ingelaere (University of Antwerp)
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- Stream:
- Social Anthropology
- Location:
- Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 4
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Little is known about the long-term impact of experiences of mass violence on personal and communal narratives and practices. What does a processual, life-course or intergenerational perspective reveal about how communities and individuals reproduce or disrupt factors sustaining cycles of violence?
Long Abstract:
Many African societies have been plagued by episodes of intense and/or mass violence, recently or in distant pasts. Hence the interest in the long-term and cyclical effects of violent conflict: does violence beget violence? Political economy approaches established the (causal) links between violent conflict and poverty or institutional development in general (e.g. the conflict trap). Less is known about the impact of mass violence on less tangible factors such as narratives and practices of identity and belonging, feelings of trust and security, capacities to aspire or ways of participating in social and political life. Although it is widely accepted that shared experiences of mass violence (or, cultural trauma) become part of the story people tell about themselves, their community and the world, it remains unclear how this evolves over the life course and, especially, to what extent and how transmission across generations occurs.
In this panel we therefore invite contributions based on empirically rich and methodologically innovating research documenting and analyzing the long-term effects of violent conflict, preferably but not exclusively, by adopting a longitudinal and processual life-course or intergenerational perspective. What does such an approach and perspective reveal about the ways communities and individuals reproduce or disrupt the factors sustaining cycles of violence. Who remains stuck, vulnerable or damaged and why? Who portrays and what clarifies resilience, personal development and growth?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -Lidewyde Berckmoes (African Studies Centre Leiden)
Paper short abstract:
Based on long-term ethnographic research, the paper highlights how young Burundians' experiences of conflict in childhood and youth affect practices in young adulthood. The aim is to identify how past conflicts feed into or divert new conflict, and how people find ways to live with chronic crisis.
Paper long abstract:
Based on long-term ethnographic research, in this paper I seek to understand how young Burundians' experiences of conflict in childhood and youth affect narratives and practices in young adulthood. I describe the life courses of several youths who I have come to know in the aftermath of the civil war that lasted from 1993-2005, focusing on their experiences during the most recent political crisis (2015-now). I met all young interlocutors in Bujumbura (2007-2010), yet nowadays several of them reside in other countries in the Great lakes region and beyond - in search of employment, education and/or security among others. I am particularly interested in the question how childhood experiences with conflict affect later life decision-making and practices, particularly with regards to the use and avoidance of violence/ non-violence. In this way, the paper aims to contribute to insight into how past conflicts, through everyday practices and meaning-making, may feed into or divert outbreaks of new conflict, as well as how people find ways to live with what appears as chronic or cyclical crisis.
Umutoni Alida Furaha (University of Rwanda)
Paper short abstract:
This article analyses how young people Rwandophone Congolese in refugee camp experience life and construct their identity. Within the context of(in)security, the article explores youth's experiences of conflict through kinship narratives and ways in which they construct identity.
Paper long abstract:
This article analyses how young people Rwandophone Congolese in refugee camp experience life in a shelter and construct their identity. Within the context of such life, the article examines the nature of refugees social, economic and (in)security relationship with the host community. Gihembe refugee camp is among the oldest and has hosted Congolese since 1997. Drawing from in-depth interviews with youth Rwandophone Congolese aged between 21 and 35 years old, the article explores youth's experiences of conflict through kinship narratives and ways in which they construct identity. It emerges from interviews that young people are somewhat confused about how to identify themselves given social and economic relationship developed between them and the host community, which further make the youth to articulate an ambiguous identity: on the one hand, they consider themselves as Rwandan and on the other hand, as Congolese which makes them to think about fighting in other to go back to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The findings reveal that the (in)security aspect in the original country and in the host country impact on ways of making a home. Additionally, the young people questioned the role of local elites in North Kivu in building sustainable peace.
Gunilla Bjerén (Stockholm University)
Paper short abstract:
In life trajectories and stories collected in Shashemene, Ethiopia, in 2008-09 past experiences of violence among middle aged persons appear to be subdued by processes caused by long lasting personal and structural relations. The context is the revolution of 1974, and subsequent violent periods.
Paper long abstract:
In 1973 I gathered data on the social and demographic structure of Shashemene town in southern Ethiopia. The revolution that overturned the regime of Haile Selassie began a year later. In 2008, 35 years later, I was able to return to Shashemene to gather data on the importance of the revolution and subsequent events on the life courses of men and women in the town.
The approach was two-dimensional: 1) to collect chronological data on life events, such as movement, livelihoods, couple formation and dissolution, and reproduction, from 1973 to 2008 (650 in all), and 2) to record life stories evoked by the simple question "tell us about your life" to a limited number of persons who had lived through the 1973-2008 period. In addition I gathered demographic data to make it possible to assess structural changes to Shashemene. The rationale behind the research design was to avoid foregrounding violent processes that might not be that prominent in a "spontaneous" story.
What I found was that early events, such as the revolution in 1974, were suppressed in relation to more recent events, such as the fall of the military regime in 1991. Further, that when middle aged persons were asked to talk about their lives, or tell about reasons for events, past experiences of violence were subdued by processes caused by long lasting personal and structural relations. There was furthermore a distinct class aspect in what was told.
Sébastien Boulay (Université Paris Descartes/CEPED)
Paper short abstract:
Starting from songs and poems dedicated to the figures of martyrs in Western Sahara, our reflection will focus on the role of these artistic productions and their performativity in the intergenerational transmission of stories of violent deaths told in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf.
Paper long abstract:
Our paper will address the centrality of the figures of martyrs in contemporary Saharawi political life and identity, especially in the refugee camps of Tindouf (Algeria) where the Saharawi state in exile has encouraged the production of a national narrative largely dedicated to the memory of these victims (civil or military) of the violence of the war or the Moroccan repression. These figures of martyrs are largely told by poetry and song which allow, in this society with a strong oral tradition, their transmission from generation to generation. We will see if these stories encourage self-sacrifice amongst certain young Saharawis today, who are disappointed at the failures of the peace negotiations and ready to take up arms, or if instead they rather support a non-violent political line.
At the methodological level, our research consisted first of all in constituting a corpus of poems and songs dedicated to famous martyrs, which we identified on the Web then contextualized in the field, translated from Arabic and analyzed in their content and in their form. It now consists of a filmed ethnography whose purpose is to gather the word of the authors of these tributes but also the stories of the families of martyrs, to study their particular form and see how these stories can be staged in the framework of online or offline commemorations such as the one dedicated to the first Saharawi martyr who died on March 8, 1974, Bachir Lahlaoui.
Mareike Schomerus (Busara Center)
Paper short abstract:
This interdisciplinary study examines how the mental landscape of post-conflict recovery influences behaviour. Simply recalling the conflict changes the way people behave, but long-term effects of violence and the narratives that shape people's lives post-conflict are nuanced and multifaceted.
Paper long abstract:
Northern Ugandans have diverse opinions on the question whether their society and their lives have been rebuilt since the end of violent conflict in 2006. While life has much improved, recovery has been challenging. The war's legacy shapes everyday experience of structural and institutional issues as well as social and personal, or even psychological, concerns. Together, the presence of the war in people's minds and the structural problems they face make up what we call the 'mental landscape of post-conflict recovery.'
This paper helps our understanding of how this mental landscape influences individual behaviour. Numerous studies suggest that past experience of violent conflict affects deep determinants of behaviour; counterintuitively, the current consensus is that it promotes pro-social behaviour. However, long-term effects of the experience of violent conflict and the narratives that shape people's lives post-conflict are more nuanced and multifaceted.
This study, conducted in Uganda in 2018 by nine co-authors, combines an experimental set-up using priming to better establish causal relationships with systematic and semi-structured qualitative and ethnographic work. The study design makes use of micronarratives (which the respondents self-signify along various dimensions) as a prime to measure deep determinants of behaviour. Qualitative research and micronarratives allow us to unpack the mechanisms behind the relationship between recalling the experience of conflict and behaviour. We find that remembering the conflict changes the way people behave, that the experience of inclusion can be contradictory, and that idleness might be an unexpected expression of agency.
Marjoke Oosterom (Institute of Development Studies) Lloyd Pswarayi (Research & Advocacy Unit)
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the relative influence of families and peers on young people's views of state violence and repression in Zimbabwe, and their engagement in urban politics post-Mugabe.
Paper long abstract:
This paper analyses the relative influence of families and peers on young people's views of state violence and repression in Zimbabwe, and their engagement with politics post-Mugabe. The paper is based on qualitative case-study research in four cities. It paper discusses how older family members instruct youth based on their experiences with past episodes of violence, especially during Zimbabwe's 'crisis years' between 2000 and 2008, often warning them against political engagement. For those whose families were strongly affected by the 2008 peak in election violence, narratives of violence strongly shaped their attitudes towards politics while growing up. At the same time, peers and contemporaries play an equally important role when youth interpret current political developments, and decide on how to engage: stay aside, protest, join a group of violent party youth, or otherwise. How young Zimbabweans currently engage with politics is also shaped by other factors: where they are in the life course, and gender identity. Present-day political engagement, including in recent protests is the outcome of multiple social dynamics, both at home and in other social networks. The paper contributes to debates on youth politics in contexts of state violence and repression, and to an understanding of how experiences and notions of violence are narrated and reproduced in social networks. Ultimately, this influences how youth for cope with and respond to violent surroundings.
Antea Paviotti (University of Antwerp) Bert Ingelaere (University of Antwerp)
Paper short abstract:
We aim to verify whether, to what extent and why the salience of ethnicity following mass categorical violence is declining in post-conflict Burundi, through an analysis of ethnic boundary making in both narratives ('ways of seeing the world') and practices ('ways of acting in the world').
Paper long abstract:
Ethnicity is a degree of 'groupness' or 'boundedness' resulting from social processes, such as violence. Burundi experienced over a decade of violence resulting in high levels of ethnic groupness or boundedness. Little is known, however, about the declining curves of ethnic belonging, in Burundi and beyond. Is there variation in the degrees of ethnic groupness in space and time? What, if anything, drives the decline of ethnic groupness in the aftermath of mass categorical violence?
We verify this process by relying on a database of 300 life histories collected in different communities in post-conflict Burundi. The study of the narratives emerging in these histories reveals whether, when and why people adopt an ethnic perspective in their 'ways of seeing the world' and whether and how this changes over time. The study of practices or 'ways of acting in the world' (behaviours) brings additional insight.
The paper explores this variation in time and space by zooming in on a subset of research participants living in two localities deeply marked by important historical events (respectively, the outbreak of the rebellion that led to the 1972 mass categorical violence in Rumonge province and similar mass categorical violence following the assassination of President Ndadaye in 1993 in the central province of Gitega). Adopting a longitudinal perspective, the analysis of people's narratives and practices reveals a general decline in the salience of ethnic belonging as well as a complex mixture of ruptures and continuities in the making, unmaking and remaking of boundaries and groups.