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- Convenors:
-
Rachel Ibreck
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Jana Krause (University of Oslo)
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- Chair:
-
Rachel Ibreck
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
- Discussant:
-
Rachel Ibreck
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
- Format:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Politics and International Relations (x) Violence and Conflict Resolution (y)
- Location:
- Philosophikum, S54
- Sessions:
- Thursday 1 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the politics of communal conflict and its implications for future peacebuilding in the Horn of Africa. It foregrounds both violent and non-violent forms of agency, situated within governance structures and interventions, elite competition and gender relations.
Long Abstract:
This panel explores the politics of communal conflict in the Horn of Africa and its implications for future peacebuilding, based on empirical research with armed groups and peacebuilders on the ground. This region is notorious for its multidimensional, complex conflicts, and civil war researchers have long acknowledged that communal or 'local' conflicts constitute a crucial dimension of the complexity of war here, as elsewhere. Despite a surge in attention to these conflicts by both analysts and policymakers, the questions of how 'local-level' conflicts over land and cattle relate to governance arrangements and political competition between state authorities and opposition groups at the national level, and how these relations vary over time and space, require further investigation. There are also remaining gaps in understanding regarding the gendered and generational dimensions of such conflicts, and their historical evolution in specific cases. In addition, the impacts of recent peace and development policies on either shaping or resolving local conflicts, and the potentially multiplying effects of the climate emergency remain largely opaque. With these issues in mind, the panel will unravel the dynamics of communal violence and its political intricacies in crucial cases, situating them in the wider landscape of political violence in the Horn. It will foreground both violent and non-violent forms of agency displayed by local actors in sharply constrained circumstances. It will contribute to challenging static 'presentist' notions of customary authorities and practices, and will illuminate the contemporary political horizons, agendas and tactics emerging at the peripheries of the region.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 1 June, 2023, -Samantha Gamez (swisspeace x University of Basel)
Paper short abstract:
By focusing on the impact of devolution on peacebuilding in Kenya, this piece engages in the debate on defining “local” and multiscalar identity that goes beyond the local-international binary. Interviews with practitioners show how communal conflicts inform the future of African peacebuilding.
Paper long abstract:
After electoral violence in 2007, Kenya revised its constitution to include the most comprehensive form of decentralization in all of Africa. The effects of the political reform are manifesting in different sectors of the country. How this change has impacted the approaches and success of peacebuilding is still unclear. Through interviews with domestic and international peacebuilders who have worked in Kenyan communal conflicts, this paper sheds light on the country’s subcategories of conflicts based on key conflict drivers such as border disputes and resource scarcity and how devolution influences their resolution. These differences between conflicts and the relationships between levels of governments inform peacebuilding strategies. One strategy is “localization”, which refers to the processes of framing identities of peacebuilders and peace efforts in relation to the “local” within the given context. By studying “localization” in communal conflicts, this piece engages in the theoretical debate on defining the “local” and reveals the multiscalar nature of identity in peacebuilding and conflict that goes beyond the traditional local-international binary. The findings of this paper contribute to a broader discussion on localization in peacebuilding, provide conceptual refinement to communal conflict studies, and demonstrates how peacebuilding in Kenya can shape the future of African peacebuilding.
Flora McCrone (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the plural forms of power and authority that have emerged among pastoralist communities in northern Kenya’s political landscape following devolution in 2013, and the roles that these actors play vis a vis violent conflict involving their communities.
Paper long abstract:
In parts of Kenya’s arid north, seasonal escalations in violence among pastoralist communities are also accompanied by larger explosions of conflict – coinciding with Kenya’s election cycles – which are commonly diagnosed as being ‘traditional’ or drought-driven. These arguably reductive portrayals largely sideline the strategic motivations and machinations driving the conflict.
This paper explores the plural and emerging forms of power and authority among pastoralist communities in (northern) Kenya’s political landscape following devolution in 2013, and the roles that they play amid violent conflict involving their communities. In particular, the paper centres on the Samburu community, based on interviews and ethnography conducted through 2022-23. The paper applies the lens of ‘public authority’, which encompasses elites from the formal political and government spheres, spiritual and customary leaders and other actors. The paper investigates the roles that these actors play in driving, negotiating and resisting conflict, and the political ends that such violence serves for them.
It is tempting to assume that, in the wake of seismic political, socio-economic and environmental changes in this part of Kenya, traditional systems of authority within the Samburu and other pastoralist communities have been eroded to the point of collapse, giving rise to upticks in unbridled and chronic conflict. In fact, the paper illustrates a more complex picture, of hybrid and fluctuating public authority, whereby customary, spiritual and ‘modern’ political systems interact within the community, at times in competition but at other times in concert, in pursuit of winning local elections and expanding political territory.
Alicia Luedke (University of British Columbia)
Paper short abstract:
This paper outlines how the instrumentalization of the military labour of young pastoralist males by the state and other state-like structures, including rebel groups in South Sudan, has contributed to conflict-related sexual violence.
Paper long abstract:
Recent reports have highlighted how community-based armed groups are responsible for the lion’s share of human rights abuses in South Sudan’s ongoing wars, including conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). This has reversed the focus on the formal armed forces that characterized previous periods and ignored the large role played by community-based armed groups. However, outside of the community animal health workers operating under the auspices of a select few international NGOs and UN agencies that visit cattle camps across South Sudan to vaccinate livestock, the international humanitarian regime seems to have little interface with the membership of the country’s community embedded armed groups. This is unfortunate. Ever since the last civil war between the southern rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the northern government in Khartoum, there has been a proliferation of militia groups, such as the White Army and gelweng, or ‘cattle guard.’ This paper outlines how the instrumentalization of the military labour of young pastoralist males by the state and other state-like structures, including rebel groups in South Sudan, has contributed to CRSV as young men try to violently reinforce their autonomy and masculinity in a setting that has otherwise denied them the chance for upward mobility and marriage. It details the international humanitarian regime's engagement with these groups and proposes new ways for external actors to induce compliance with international norms preventing sexual violence in conflict.
Jana Krause (University of Oslo)
Paper short abstract:
How do communal conflicts interact with civil war dynamics? And how does this interaction of different types of armed conflict shape violence against civilians? This paper analyzes geographic spread and temporary variation in communal violence and civil war dynamics in South Sudan (2011-2020).
Paper long abstract:
How do communal conflicts interact with civil war dynamics? And how does this interaction of different types of armed conflict shape violence against civilians? This paper analyzes geographic spread and temporary variation in communal violence and civil war dynamics in South Sudan (2011-2020). Scholars have long argued that communal conflicts, which are often referred to as ‘local conflicts’, need to be better integrated into the study of civil wars and violence against civilians. However, theoretical work explaining linkages between civil war and communal conflict is sparse to date. In this paper, I analyze variation in type of violence in South Sudan, where large-scale communal conflicts preceded and succeeded the civil war. My analysis relies on event data, document analysis and interviews conducted between 2017 and 2021 during fieldwork and online. I identify geographically distinct linkages between communal conflicts and the civil war based on state institutions, elite constellations, and the impact of local peace agreements. Based on these findings, the paper develops a typology of communal conflicts and civil war linkages.