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| 1 |
ID:
108446
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2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article investigates the dynamics and politics of citizenship in Djibouti, where the issue of who qualifies as a citizen has long been controversial. While debates about citizenship and exclusion in Africa frequently centre on the legacies of colonialism and the incompleteness of the African state, this article attributes the problems of citizenship to the logic of sovereignty and the nature of the modern state. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, the article shows how Djiboutian citizenship in both the colonial and post-colonial era can be seen as graduated, assigning some groups more rights and protection than others. For those near the bottom of this ladder, the rights of citizenship do not emanate solely from legal frameworks, but from incorporation into patron-client relationships. There is also a large population who are systematically denied citizenship, and who through various practices of exclusion are reduced to 'bare life' and statelessness. No official statistics exist to document their numbers, and the article draws on interviews to illustrate the problems faced by Djibouti's stateless population.
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| 2 |
ID:
108449
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2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Appointment of traditional authorities with an international migrant background has become an important trend in Ghana. Such 'return chiefs' are expected to bring development and modernization, but - as former international migrants - they are also seen as potentially estranged from local customs and realities. As presumed guardians of tradition, they are thus placed in a situation that poses a range of dilemmas of legitimacy and public authority. The article argues that return chiefs are in an ambivalent position between the domains of tradition and modernity and that they endeavour to overcome this dilemma through emphasizing their foundation in tradition as well as by using their professional and international experience to spur local development and modernize the chieftaincy institution. Return chiefs thus simultaneously practise and invoke the traditional and the modern. In this way, the transformation of chieftaincy is embedded in both local and global contexts. Return chiefs go beyond local customs to bring development and innovation to their areas, mobilizing international networks, touring European and North American countries, and collaborating with international development agencies, NGOs, and migrants. Their practices are thus at once local and global, and the article calls for inclusion of both perspectives in contemporary chieftaincy studies.
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| 3 |
ID:
108447
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2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Taking account of the myriad of policing initiatives that have emerged both from the grassroots and from the state in post-apartheid South Africa, this article investigates the politics of mobilization for security. Focusing on the coloured townships of the Western Cape, it argues that there is no clear distinction between vigilantism and community policing, but that they are best understood as two sides of the same process of mobilization for security. The provision of security in poor neighbourhoods is an important resource in the struggle for political support, and the article argues that the willingness of government to ban vigilante organizations is not simply a reaction to their supposed violence, but also a way of defeating political opponents. By the same token, community policing initiatives are established both to reassert the authority of the state over communities that are supposed to be prone to vigilantism and to promote a specific political party agenda. The article concludes that rather than posing a threat to state sovereignty, local mobilization for security in South Africa can be seen as part of a dynamic process of state formation.
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| 4 |
ID:
108445
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| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The global attention focused on sexual violence in the DRC has not only contributed to an image of the Congolese army as a vestige of pre-modern barbarism, populated by rapists, and bearing no resemblance to the world of modern armies; it has also shaped gender and defence reform initiatives. These initiatives have become synonymous with combating sexual violence, reflecting an assumption that the gendered dynamics of the army are already known. Crucial questions such as the 'feminization' of the armed forces are consequently neglected. Based on in-depth interviews with soldiers in the Congolese armed forces, this article analyses the discursive strategies male soldiers employ in relation to the feminization of the army. In the light of the need to reform the military and military masculinities, the article discusses how globalized discourses and practices render the Congolese military a highly globalized sphere. It also highlights the particular and local ways in which military identities are produced through gender, and concludes that a simple inclusion of women in the armed forces in order to render men less violent might not have the pacifying effect intended.
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| 5 |
ID:
108443
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| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since 2004, white commercial farmers displaced under Zimbabwe's fast-track land reform programme have established new successful farms near the central Nigerian town of Shonga. This article explores the basis of that success. It addresses three key questions: (1) What has actually happened near Shonga since 2004? (2) What or who is driving the process of agrarian transformation? And (3) What are the long-term consequences for the peasantry since Nigerian agriculture is still largely peasant-based? It argues that contrary to popular myths of 'enterprising' white Zimbabwean farmers, the process is driven by a complex group of actors, including the national and regional states. Comparative evidence from similar transplantations of Zimbabwean farmers suggests that active state support is central to the success of Shonga. With respect to the relationship between the commercial farms and the peasantry, it is argued that all the synergies included in the project design to promote a symbiotic development have failed to materialize. As a result, the peasantry faces a process of 'development by dispossession'.
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