Recent literature on refugees’ agency has shed light on refugees’ capacity to claim political sub... more Recent literature on refugees’ agency has shed light on refugees’ capacity to claim political subjectivity and to creatively engage with their condition of vulnerability. Drawing on this literature, this article shows how refugees manage to reinvent spaces of participation created from the top down in refugee settlements, turning them from invited spaces to something more akin to invented spaces of participation. It does so through the analysis of Refugee Welfare Councils, local governance institutions created by the Ugandan government and UNHCR in refugee settlements, and drawing on field research conducted in April–June 2018 in Adjumani District, Uganda. The article argues that Refugee Welfare Councils (RWCs) are turned into invented spaces of participation, through which refugees undertake actions that produce a form of local citizenship based on claiming rights to food and services, the reorganization of society through the emergence of new leadership structures, and the product...
In the light of an increasing shift from international interventionism based on liberal peacebuil... more In the light of an increasing shift from international interventionism based on liberal peacebuilding to shorter-term stabilisation efforts, this article questions the persistence of the security–development nexus as a theoretical framework backing military and non-military action in conflict-affected areas. It argues that the nexus has been weakened by the prominence gained by regional and national actors on the African continent trying to enforce ‘African solutions to African problems’. Drawing on interviews with key informants and mobilising relevant primary and secondary literature, the paper explores how ad hoc mili- tary coalitions created by African states to respond to crises on the continent are sanctioning the transition from long-term peacebuilding to short-term stabilisation objectives. Analysing the Nigerian govern- ment’s counterinsurgency strategy against Boko Haram, we argue that the country has completely dropped the ambition to tackle the root causes of the insurgency, and has instead turned to short-term (and short-sighted) security stabilisation operations in line with the global trend of disengagement from active peacebuilding and development promotion. Thereby, we contend that the adoption of this kind of ‘African solutions to African problems’equals militarised crisis-manage- ment in the continent’s peripheries without advancing sustainable solutions to conflicts.
Le a ut or ità lo ca li in A fr ic a Negli ultimi vent’anni, un dibattito molto ampio si è svilup... more Le a ut or ità lo ca li in A fr ic a Negli ultimi vent’anni, un dibattito molto ampio si è sviluppato sulla relazione tra democrazia, conflitti e sviluppo emersa dalle politiche di good governance che hanno spinto molti paesi dell’Africa subsahariana a intraprendere riforme di decentramento. Nell’attribuire ai governi locali un’importanza crescente nella promozione di politiche di sviluppo, queste riforme avrebbero dovuto rafforzare la democrazia, migliorare la trasparenza e l’accountability dei governanti e rendere più semplice la gestione non violenta dei conflitti. A questo processo corrisponde una più generale svolta localistica dei donatori internazionali, che sempre più adottano la nozione di comunità locale come quadro di riferimento amministrativo sia della rappresentanza politica delle popolazioni rurali, sia delle politiche partecipative di gestione della terra e dell’erogazione di servizi pubblici.
State-building programs supported by the international donor community since the end of the 1990s... more State-building programs supported by the international donor community since the end of the 1990s in post-conflict contexts have often been considered ineffective. Analyzing the state-building enterprise in South Sudan in a historical perspective, this thesis shows how these programs, portrayed as technical and apolitical, intertwine with the longer term process of state formation with its cumulative and negotiated character. This negotiation occurs in an arena created by the encounter between international programs and local actors. The thesis will focus on three sectors in which the “local communities” have been given an important role as rightbearing subjects: the local government reform, the delivery of basic services and the land reform. As collective rights to land, services and self-rule are managed by traditional authorities, the customary sphere overlaps with the bureaucratic sphere of the modern state, encouraging the ethnicization of South Sudanese politics. The formulat...
Abstract The concept of human security became popular in the 1990s as a new framework for concept... more Abstract The concept of human security became popular in the 1990s as a new framework for conceptualising security, shifting its referent from states to human beings and expanding its scope. While acknowledging the widespread criticism and rich debate that developed around the concept of human security after its appearance, this paper analyses the context in which human security emerged as a concept and reviews its different usages with a particular focus on its application to Africa and refugee-hosting areas. It maintains that the contribution of this concept goes beyond the simple statement that security is a matter of people’s lives. Thanks to its focus on subjective understandings of security, human security can be used as an analytical framework to produce context-specific knowledge about security based on people’s perceptions of what makes them secure/insecure and on local practices of human security – what people do to feel more secure. The application of a human security framework to refugee-hosting areas in Africa would contribute towards enhancing refugees’ agency in a context often dominated by a victimising narrative, as well as providing a comprehensive understanding of security priorities, providing important information for more context-specific policymaking.
Southern Sudan's past crises have mobilised consistent flows of humanitarian assistance. Reca... more Southern Sudan's past crises have mobilised consistent flows of humanitarian assistance. Recalling the humanitarian catastrophes and international interventions of the 1990s–2000s, the war that exploded in South Sudan in 2013 has been no exception. This paper shows that the SPLM/A political elite promptly incorporated these flows of external resources into its extraverted strategies of state-building. Similar to the current situation, it did so by appropriating not only material assets but also discourses, playing the ‘fragile state’ card and raising fears of governance failure and state collapse. This paper analyses two specific aspects of international support to Southern Sudan in the 1990s–2000s: the political legitimisation of the movement through the negotiation of relief delivery, and direct support to rebel local government structures. These two aspects contributed to the creation of a state that substantially overlapped with the SPLM/A structure, thanks to the movement&#...
Land governance reforms are part of donor-sponsored liberal peacebuilding projects which have sta... more Land governance reforms are part of donor-sponsored liberal peacebuilding projects which have state-building as one of their core elements. After the end of the civil war with Sudan (1983–2005), South Sudan undertook a process of institution-building and policy-making supported by international donors to create a decentralised system based on local ‘communities’ and their ‘traditional authorities’. Communal customary rights to land have been legalised to reduce rural people's economic vulnerability and satisfy one of the major grievances that led to war. In fact, the land reform encouraged the overlapping between the spheres of local state administration and the ethnic community ruled by traditional authorities. To date this has appeared to strengthen ethnic affiliation as a means to access resources and enrich government officers’ repertoires for claiming control over the territory on behalf of the ‘community’, thereby increasing competition in a context marked by the militaris...
Recent literature on refugees' agency has shed light on refugees' capacity to claim political sub... more Recent literature on refugees' agency has shed light on refugees' capacity to claim political subjectivity and to creatively engage with their condition of vulnerability. Drawing on this literature, this paper shows how refugees manage to reinvent spaces of participation created from the top down in the refugee settlements, turning them from 'invited spaces' to something more similar to 'invented spaces' of participation. It does so through the analysis of Refugee Welfare Councils, local governance institutions created by the Ugandan government and UNHCR in Ugandan refugee settlements, drawing on field research conducted in April-June 2018 in Adjumani District, Uganda. The paper argues that RWCs are turned into invented spaces of participation, through which refugees undertake actions that produce a form of local citizenship based on claiming rights to food and services, on the reorganization of society through the emergence of new leadership structures, and on the production of new forms of identity and belonging. These all contribute to the emergence of a new imagined community which is based on geographical proximity and on the shared experience of exile, distancing itself from prevalent traditional forms of identification and belonging in the South Sudanese society.
Refugee's agency has been the object of a growing literature questioning victimizing narratives o... more Refugee's agency has been the object of a growing literature questioning victimizing narratives of powerlessness. In positioning itself in this stream, this paper explores different processes of identity production among South Sudanese refugees in Adjumani District, Uganda. Through a comparison of social dynamics in refugee settlements and among self-settled refugees, it shows that identity production is highly situational and that it can be considered as a form of agency, even though its transformative potential remains low. Acknowledging the complex relationship between structural constraints and refugees' agency, the concept of social navigation is mobilized to shed light on refugees' identity choices: though these do not modify structural conditions, they do contribute to creating spaces of agency that ultimately make refugee lives more secure and predictable.
The concept of human security became popular in the 1990s as a new framework for conceptualising ... more The concept of human security became popular in the 1990s as a new framework for conceptualising security, shifting its referent from states to human beings and expanding its scope. While acknowledging the widespread criticism and rich debate that developed around the concept of human security after its appearance, this paper analyses the context in which human security emerged as a concept and reviews its different usages with a particular focus on its application to Africa and refugee-hosting areas. It maintains that the contribution of this concept goes beyond the simple statement that security is a matter of people’s lives. Thanks to its focus on subjective understandings of security, human security can be used as an analytical framework to produce context-specific knowledge about security based on people’s perceptions of what makes them secure/insecure and on local practices of human security – what people do to feel more secure. The application of a human security framework to refugee-hosting areas in Africa would contribute towards enhancing refugees’ agency in a context often dominated by a victimising narrative, as well as providing a comprehensive understanding of security priorities, providing important information for more context-specific policymaking.
Key facts • Africa experienced sustained economic growth in the early years of the new millennium... more Key facts • Africa experienced sustained economic growth in the early years of the new millennium. Despite a slowdown since late 2014, an average growth rate of 3.2% is expected in 2018 and 3.6% in 2019. Nevertheless, thirty-one African countries, including those with the highest growth rates, rank low in the Human Development Index. • Improving education is one of the outstanding human development challenges that African countries face. Primary education enrolment increased from 59% to 79% between 1999 and 2012, but secondary and tertiary education enrolment remains significantly lower. • Even though unemployment in sub-Saharan countries is comparatively low with respect to other regions, more than two-thirds (68%) of the working population occupies vulnerable positions (self-employed workers, contributing family workers, workers with high levels of precariousness) 1. Furthermore, a significant number of people remain underemployed (people employed in lower-level positions than they are qualified for, people forced to work reduced hours, or earning less than the minimum wage) 2. This severely affects 1 ILO, World Employment Social Outlook-Trends 2017, 2017.
Southern Sudan's past crises have mobilised consistent flows of humanitarian assistance. Recallin... more Southern Sudan's past crises have mobilised consistent flows of humanitarian assistance. Recalling the humanitarian catastrophes and international interventions of the 1990s–2000s, the war that exploded in South Sudan in 2013 has been no exception. This paper shows that the SPLM/A political elite promptly incorporated these flows of external resources into its extraverted strategies of state-building. Similar to the current situation, it did so by appropriating not only material assets but also discourses, playing the ‘fragile state’ card and raising fears of governance failure and state collapse. This paper analyses two specific aspects of international support to Southern Sudan in the 1990s–2000s: the political legitimisation of the movement through the negotiation of relief delivery, and direct support to rebel local government structures. These two aspects contributed to the creation of a state that substantially overlapped with the SPLM/A structure, thanks to the movement's capacity to capitalise on external resources, a subject worth analysing in future research.
Recent literature on refugees’ agency has shed light on refugees’ capacity to claim political sub... more Recent literature on refugees’ agency has shed light on refugees’ capacity to claim political subjectivity and to creatively engage with their condition of vulnerability. Drawing on this literature, this article shows how refugees manage to reinvent spaces of participation created from the top down in refugee settlements, turning them from invited spaces to something more akin to invented spaces of participation. It does so through the analysis of Refugee Welfare Councils, local governance institutions created by the Ugandan government and UNHCR in refugee settlements, and drawing on field research conducted in April–June 2018 in Adjumani District, Uganda. The article argues that Refugee Welfare Councils (RWCs) are turned into invented spaces of participation, through which refugees undertake actions that produce a form of local citizenship based on claiming rights to food and services, the reorganization of society through the emergence of new leadership structures, and the product...
In the light of an increasing shift from international interventionism based on liberal peacebuil... more In the light of an increasing shift from international interventionism based on liberal peacebuilding to shorter-term stabilisation efforts, this article questions the persistence of the security–development nexus as a theoretical framework backing military and non-military action in conflict-affected areas. It argues that the nexus has been weakened by the prominence gained by regional and national actors on the African continent trying to enforce ‘African solutions to African problems’. Drawing on interviews with key informants and mobilising relevant primary and secondary literature, the paper explores how ad hoc mili- tary coalitions created by African states to respond to crises on the continent are sanctioning the transition from long-term peacebuilding to short-term stabilisation objectives. Analysing the Nigerian govern- ment’s counterinsurgency strategy against Boko Haram, we argue that the country has completely dropped the ambition to tackle the root causes of the insurgency, and has instead turned to short-term (and short-sighted) security stabilisation operations in line with the global trend of disengagement from active peacebuilding and development promotion. Thereby, we contend that the adoption of this kind of ‘African solutions to African problems’equals militarised crisis-manage- ment in the continent’s peripheries without advancing sustainable solutions to conflicts.
Le a ut or ità lo ca li in A fr ic a Negli ultimi vent’anni, un dibattito molto ampio si è svilup... more Le a ut or ità lo ca li in A fr ic a Negli ultimi vent’anni, un dibattito molto ampio si è sviluppato sulla relazione tra democrazia, conflitti e sviluppo emersa dalle politiche di good governance che hanno spinto molti paesi dell’Africa subsahariana a intraprendere riforme di decentramento. Nell’attribuire ai governi locali un’importanza crescente nella promozione di politiche di sviluppo, queste riforme avrebbero dovuto rafforzare la democrazia, migliorare la trasparenza e l’accountability dei governanti e rendere più semplice la gestione non violenta dei conflitti. A questo processo corrisponde una più generale svolta localistica dei donatori internazionali, che sempre più adottano la nozione di comunità locale come quadro di riferimento amministrativo sia della rappresentanza politica delle popolazioni rurali, sia delle politiche partecipative di gestione della terra e dell’erogazione di servizi pubblici.
State-building programs supported by the international donor community since the end of the 1990s... more State-building programs supported by the international donor community since the end of the 1990s in post-conflict contexts have often been considered ineffective. Analyzing the state-building enterprise in South Sudan in a historical perspective, this thesis shows how these programs, portrayed as technical and apolitical, intertwine with the longer term process of state formation with its cumulative and negotiated character. This negotiation occurs in an arena created by the encounter between international programs and local actors. The thesis will focus on three sectors in which the “local communities” have been given an important role as rightbearing subjects: the local government reform, the delivery of basic services and the land reform. As collective rights to land, services and self-rule are managed by traditional authorities, the customary sphere overlaps with the bureaucratic sphere of the modern state, encouraging the ethnicization of South Sudanese politics. The formulat...
Abstract The concept of human security became popular in the 1990s as a new framework for concept... more Abstract The concept of human security became popular in the 1990s as a new framework for conceptualising security, shifting its referent from states to human beings and expanding its scope. While acknowledging the widespread criticism and rich debate that developed around the concept of human security after its appearance, this paper analyses the context in which human security emerged as a concept and reviews its different usages with a particular focus on its application to Africa and refugee-hosting areas. It maintains that the contribution of this concept goes beyond the simple statement that security is a matter of people’s lives. Thanks to its focus on subjective understandings of security, human security can be used as an analytical framework to produce context-specific knowledge about security based on people’s perceptions of what makes them secure/insecure and on local practices of human security – what people do to feel more secure. The application of a human security framework to refugee-hosting areas in Africa would contribute towards enhancing refugees’ agency in a context often dominated by a victimising narrative, as well as providing a comprehensive understanding of security priorities, providing important information for more context-specific policymaking.
Southern Sudan's past crises have mobilised consistent flows of humanitarian assistance. Reca... more Southern Sudan's past crises have mobilised consistent flows of humanitarian assistance. Recalling the humanitarian catastrophes and international interventions of the 1990s–2000s, the war that exploded in South Sudan in 2013 has been no exception. This paper shows that the SPLM/A political elite promptly incorporated these flows of external resources into its extraverted strategies of state-building. Similar to the current situation, it did so by appropriating not only material assets but also discourses, playing the ‘fragile state’ card and raising fears of governance failure and state collapse. This paper analyses two specific aspects of international support to Southern Sudan in the 1990s–2000s: the political legitimisation of the movement through the negotiation of relief delivery, and direct support to rebel local government structures. These two aspects contributed to the creation of a state that substantially overlapped with the SPLM/A structure, thanks to the movement&#...
Land governance reforms are part of donor-sponsored liberal peacebuilding projects which have sta... more Land governance reforms are part of donor-sponsored liberal peacebuilding projects which have state-building as one of their core elements. After the end of the civil war with Sudan (1983–2005), South Sudan undertook a process of institution-building and policy-making supported by international donors to create a decentralised system based on local ‘communities’ and their ‘traditional authorities’. Communal customary rights to land have been legalised to reduce rural people's economic vulnerability and satisfy one of the major grievances that led to war. In fact, the land reform encouraged the overlapping between the spheres of local state administration and the ethnic community ruled by traditional authorities. To date this has appeared to strengthen ethnic affiliation as a means to access resources and enrich government officers’ repertoires for claiming control over the territory on behalf of the ‘community’, thereby increasing competition in a context marked by the militaris...
Recent literature on refugees' agency has shed light on refugees' capacity to claim political sub... more Recent literature on refugees' agency has shed light on refugees' capacity to claim political subjectivity and to creatively engage with their condition of vulnerability. Drawing on this literature, this paper shows how refugees manage to reinvent spaces of participation created from the top down in the refugee settlements, turning them from 'invited spaces' to something more similar to 'invented spaces' of participation. It does so through the analysis of Refugee Welfare Councils, local governance institutions created by the Ugandan government and UNHCR in Ugandan refugee settlements, drawing on field research conducted in April-June 2018 in Adjumani District, Uganda. The paper argues that RWCs are turned into invented spaces of participation, through which refugees undertake actions that produce a form of local citizenship based on claiming rights to food and services, on the reorganization of society through the emergence of new leadership structures, and on the production of new forms of identity and belonging. These all contribute to the emergence of a new imagined community which is based on geographical proximity and on the shared experience of exile, distancing itself from prevalent traditional forms of identification and belonging in the South Sudanese society.
Refugee's agency has been the object of a growing literature questioning victimizing narratives o... more Refugee's agency has been the object of a growing literature questioning victimizing narratives of powerlessness. In positioning itself in this stream, this paper explores different processes of identity production among South Sudanese refugees in Adjumani District, Uganda. Through a comparison of social dynamics in refugee settlements and among self-settled refugees, it shows that identity production is highly situational and that it can be considered as a form of agency, even though its transformative potential remains low. Acknowledging the complex relationship between structural constraints and refugees' agency, the concept of social navigation is mobilized to shed light on refugees' identity choices: though these do not modify structural conditions, they do contribute to creating spaces of agency that ultimately make refugee lives more secure and predictable.
The concept of human security became popular in the 1990s as a new framework for conceptualising ... more The concept of human security became popular in the 1990s as a new framework for conceptualising security, shifting its referent from states to human beings and expanding its scope. While acknowledging the widespread criticism and rich debate that developed around the concept of human security after its appearance, this paper analyses the context in which human security emerged as a concept and reviews its different usages with a particular focus on its application to Africa and refugee-hosting areas. It maintains that the contribution of this concept goes beyond the simple statement that security is a matter of people’s lives. Thanks to its focus on subjective understandings of security, human security can be used as an analytical framework to produce context-specific knowledge about security based on people’s perceptions of what makes them secure/insecure and on local practices of human security – what people do to feel more secure. The application of a human security framework to refugee-hosting areas in Africa would contribute towards enhancing refugees’ agency in a context often dominated by a victimising narrative, as well as providing a comprehensive understanding of security priorities, providing important information for more context-specific policymaking.
Key facts • Africa experienced sustained economic growth in the early years of the new millennium... more Key facts • Africa experienced sustained economic growth in the early years of the new millennium. Despite a slowdown since late 2014, an average growth rate of 3.2% is expected in 2018 and 3.6% in 2019. Nevertheless, thirty-one African countries, including those with the highest growth rates, rank low in the Human Development Index. • Improving education is one of the outstanding human development challenges that African countries face. Primary education enrolment increased from 59% to 79% between 1999 and 2012, but secondary and tertiary education enrolment remains significantly lower. • Even though unemployment in sub-Saharan countries is comparatively low with respect to other regions, more than two-thirds (68%) of the working population occupies vulnerable positions (self-employed workers, contributing family workers, workers with high levels of precariousness) 1. Furthermore, a significant number of people remain underemployed (people employed in lower-level positions than they are qualified for, people forced to work reduced hours, or earning less than the minimum wage) 2. This severely affects 1 ILO, World Employment Social Outlook-Trends 2017, 2017.
Southern Sudan's past crises have mobilised consistent flows of humanitarian assistance. Recallin... more Southern Sudan's past crises have mobilised consistent flows of humanitarian assistance. Recalling the humanitarian catastrophes and international interventions of the 1990s–2000s, the war that exploded in South Sudan in 2013 has been no exception. This paper shows that the SPLM/A political elite promptly incorporated these flows of external resources into its extraverted strategies of state-building. Similar to the current situation, it did so by appropriating not only material assets but also discourses, playing the ‘fragile state’ card and raising fears of governance failure and state collapse. This paper analyses two specific aspects of international support to Southern Sudan in the 1990s–2000s: the political legitimisation of the movement through the negotiation of relief delivery, and direct support to rebel local government structures. These two aspects contributed to the creation of a state that substantially overlapped with the SPLM/A structure, thanks to the movement's capacity to capitalise on external resources, a subject worth analysing in future research.
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