Catherine Bolten
Biographic Data
| ID | 130557 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Catherine Bolten |
| GIVEN NAMES | Catherine |
| FAMILY NAME | Bolten |
| SIGNATURE | BOLTEN C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Notre Dame |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3387-2580 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 59 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Youth and sustainable peacebuilding
Usurious strangers and “a better tomorrow
Rice was historically a “total social phenomenon” in Sierra Leone, molding rural identities through farming. Crop yields are rapidly declining, forcing change among people who once claimed to be “wealthy” from rice and now face severe food insecurity. In response to change, they can take out loans—offered by “strangers”—to continue farming rice, or they can “diversify” and farm alternative crops. Low rice yields largely condemn those who accept a…
The Paradox of Planning
Post-war Sierra Leone has experienced a population explosion that has raised questions among rural farmers about the relationship between family size and poverty. Agricultural decline and the high cost of schooling are not prompting parents to articulate a desire for smaller families; rather, they highlight that the uncertainty around articulating the "right" number of children is unresolvable because the ability to send children to school is pre…
Man or Monster? The Trial of a Khmer Rouge Torturer by Alexander Laban Hinton, Durham, NC
Productive work and subjected labor
The implementation of child rights legislation in the African nation of Sierra Leone has revealed children articulating novel values for education and labor. Corporal punishment was used to reinforce for children the importance of schooling and uncompensated household labor to their development as people. With its legal banning, children are forming values that conflict with those held by elders and with rights doctrine itself. They differentiate…
Ebola Through a Glass, Darkly
The Ebola epidemic unfolded in radically divergent manners in two neighboring villages in Sierra Leone, with one recording 40 cases and 20 deaths and the other recording zero cases, though they are located only 100 meters apart. Presented with identical information about Ebola's cause and modes of transmission, one chief reacted by attempting to shield his village from outside knowledge and influence, encouraging his people to continue their norm…
Producing Ebola
Producing Ebola:Creating Knowledge In and About an Epidemic Catherine Bolten and Susan Shepler Try to remember what it was like during the fall of 2014. Ebola was always in the news, the virus was spreading and people were dying at an increasing rate in West Africa. Although there should have been ways to stop it, more and more people were falling ill. In the United States, there was near panic about the possibility of it coming here. In Septembe…
Circulating Ebola in the Anthropocene
I Will Vote What Is in My Heart
The 2012 national election laws in Sierra Leone addressed the campaign violence and discord experienced in previous elections with heavy restrictions on everyday freedoms such as movement, expression, and assembly. The sitting government requested the presence of international observer missions to legitimate the election as “democratic” in spite of these human rights restrictions. Rather than transforming local practices to conform with internati…
Childhood Deployed
A Great Scholar is an Overeducated Person
Education was historically valued in Sierra Leone as a possession that conveyed and expressed elite status, with the revered, authoritative teacher being the gatekeeper. The erosion of teachers’ authority through government policies designed to universalize access to education has called into question the once-certain high status of the educated. With the future now ambiguous, students and teachers undertake “practices of uncertainty,” engaging i…
The Memories They Want. Autobiography in the Chaos of Sierra Leone
Les habitants de Makeni en Sierra Leone racontent le chaos, l'incertitude et la terreur de leur vie durant l'occupation par les rebelles, en parlant de la qualité du temps en termes substantiellement différents de ceux qui décrivent celui de la vie ordinaire. Plutôt que de contextualiser leur propos dans le cadre de « ce qui s'est passé » et « quand », les narrateurs ont créé une communauté de mémoire mettant l'accent sur le « qui s'est passé ». …
SobelRumors and Tribal Truths
This article examines a case study from war-torn Sierra Leone in 1994, in which a rumor galvanized violent public action and only dissipated when a seemingly unrelated issue was resolved. I argue that the circulation of rumors can foment the emergence of political narratives focused on topics that are otherwise taboo, and creates the space to act on them without overtly disturbing the status quo. I analyze the content of interview material with r…
Hoffman, Danny
Anthropos , Seite 626 - 627
We Have Been Sensitized
Civilians in Makeni, Sierra Leone, describe their relationship with the ex-combatants of the rebel RUF as a state of being "sensitized" to their presence. I argue that "sensitization" connotes civilians'acceptance of ex-combatants living among them, while they refuse to incorporate ex-combatants into the social order. Civilians, although treating the war as a "state of exception," refuse to grant ex-combatants the grace of belonging to this excep…
Rethinking burgeoning political consciousness
This article uses interviews with former student activists in Sierra Leone to explore what ideals motivate students to participate in political action. In Sierra Leone, students used the military as a cover for their own democratic programme, initially by encouraging a coup that they wanted to partake in, later by joining the officer corps themselves. I challenge the notion that student interactions with the urban lumpenproletariat and 'militaria…
The agricultural impasse
This article analyzes the notion of "normal" post-war development in Makeni, northern Sierra Leone in light of the fact that local people, the national government, and NGOs appear to be at an impasse concerning agricultural practices. I argue that fundamentally different perspectives on what construes desirable post-war development are causing this deadlock. The government adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to make the countr…
African Sacred Groves
We Have Been Sensitized
Civilians in Makeni, Sierra Leone, describe their relationship with the ex-combatants of the rebel RUF as a state of being "sensitized" to their presence. I argue that "sensitization" connotes civilians'acceptance of ex-combatants living among them, while they refuse to incorporate ex-combatants into the social order. Civilians, although treating the war as a "state of exception," refuse to grant ex-combatants the grace of belonging to this excep…
Producing Ebola
Producing Ebola:Creating Knowledge In and About an Epidemic Catherine Bolten and Susan Shepler Try to remember what it was like during the fall of 2014. Ebola was always in the news, the virus was spreading and people were dying at an increasing rate in West Africa. Although there should have been ways to stop it, more and more people were falling ill. In the United States, there was near panic about the possibility of it coming here. In Septembe…
Ebola Through a Glass, Darkly
The Ebola epidemic unfolded in radically divergent manners in two neighboring villages in Sierra Leone, with one recording 40 cases and 20 deaths and the other recording zero cases, though they are located only 100 meters apart. Presented with identical information about Ebola's cause and modes of transmission, one chief reacted by attempting to shield his village from outside knowledge and influence, encouraging his people to continue their norm…
The agricultural impasse
This article analyzes the notion of "normal" post-war development in Makeni, northern Sierra Leone in light of the fact that local people, the national government, and NGOs appear to be at an impasse concerning agricultural practices. I argue that fundamentally different perspectives on what construes desirable post-war development are causing this deadlock. The government adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to make the countr…
A Great Scholar is an Overeducated Person
Education was historically valued in Sierra Leone as a possession that conveyed and expressed elite status, with the revered, authoritative teacher being the gatekeeper. The erosion of teachers’ authority through government policies designed to universalize access to education has called into question the once-certain high status of the educated. With the future now ambiguous, students and teachers undertake “practices of uncertainty,” engaging i…
I Will Vote What Is in My Heart
The 2012 national election laws in Sierra Leone addressed the campaign violence and discord experienced in previous elections with heavy restrictions on everyday freedoms such as movement, expression, and assembly. The sitting government requested the presence of international observer missions to legitimate the election as “democratic” in spite of these human rights restrictions. Rather than transforming local practices to conform with internati…
SobelRumors and Tribal Truths
This article examines a case study from war-torn Sierra Leone in 1994, in which a rumor galvanized violent public action and only dissipated when a seemingly unrelated issue was resolved. I argue that the circulation of rumors can foment the emergence of political narratives focused on topics that are otherwise taboo, and creates the space to act on them without overtly disturbing the status quo. I analyze the content of interview material with r…
Productive work and subjected labor
The implementation of child rights legislation in the African nation of Sierra Leone has revealed children articulating novel values for education and labor. Corporal punishment was used to reinforce for children the importance of schooling and uncompensated household labor to their development as people. With its legal banning, children are forming values that conflict with those held by elders and with rights doctrine itself. They differentiate…
Childhood Deployed
Usurious strangers and “a better tomorrow
Rice was historically a “total social phenomenon” in Sierra Leone, molding rural identities through farming. Crop yields are rapidly declining, forcing change among people who once claimed to be “wealthy” from rice and now face severe food insecurity. In response to change, they can take out loans—offered by “strangers”—to continue farming rice, or they can “diversify” and farm alternative crops. Low rice yields largely condemn those who accept a…
The Paradox of Planning
Post-war Sierra Leone has experienced a population explosion that has raised questions among rural farmers about the relationship between family size and poverty. Agricultural decline and the high cost of schooling are not prompting parents to articulate a desire for smaller families; rather, they highlight that the uncertainty around articulating the "right" number of children is unresolvable because the ability to send children to school is pre…
Circulating Ebola in the Anthropocene
Rethinking burgeoning political consciousness
This article uses interviews with former student activists in Sierra Leone to explore what ideals motivate students to participate in political action. In Sierra Leone, students used the military as a cover for their own democratic programme, initially by encouraging a coup that they wanted to partake in, later by joining the officer corps themselves. I challenge the notion that student interactions with the urban lumpenproletariat and 'militaria…
The agricultural impasse
This article analyzes the notion of "normal" post-war development in Makeni, northern Sierra Leone in light of the fact that local people, the national government, and NGOs appear to be at an impasse concerning agricultural practices. I argue that fundamentally different perspectives on what construes desirable post-war development are causing this deadlock. The government adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to make the countr…
African Sacred Groves
Hoffman, Danny
Anthropos , Seite 626 - 627
We Have Been Sensitized
Civilians in Makeni, Sierra Leone, describe their relationship with the ex-combatants of the rebel RUF as a state of being "sensitized" to their presence. I argue that "sensitization" connotes civilians'acceptance of ex-combatants living among them, while they refuse to incorporate ex-combatants into the social order. Civilians, although treating the war as a "state of exception," refuse to grant ex-combatants the grace of belonging to this excep…
The Memories They Want. Autobiography in the Chaos of Sierra Leone
Les habitants de Makeni en Sierra Leone racontent le chaos, l'incertitude et la terreur de leur vie durant l'occupation par les rebelles, en parlant de la qualité du temps en termes substantiellement différents de ceux qui décrivent celui de la vie ordinaire. Plutôt que de contextualiser leur propos dans le cadre de « ce qui s'est passé » et « quand », les narrateurs ont créé une communauté de mémoire mettant l'accent sur le « qui s'est passé ». …
SobelRumors and Tribal Truths
This article examines a case study from war-torn Sierra Leone in 1994, in which a rumor galvanized violent public action and only dissipated when a seemingly unrelated issue was resolved. I argue that the circulation of rumors can foment the emergence of political narratives focused on topics that are otherwise taboo, and creates the space to act on them without overtly disturbing the status quo. I analyze the content of interview material with r…
Childhood Deployed
A Great Scholar is an Overeducated Person
Education was historically valued in Sierra Leone as a possession that conveyed and expressed elite status, with the revered, authoritative teacher being the gatekeeper. The erosion of teachers’ authority through government policies designed to universalize access to education has called into question the once-certain high status of the educated. With the future now ambiguous, students and teachers undertake “practices of uncertainty,” engaging i…
Circulating Ebola in the Anthropocene
I Will Vote What Is in My Heart
The 2012 national election laws in Sierra Leone addressed the campaign violence and discord experienced in previous elections with heavy restrictions on everyday freedoms such as movement, expression, and assembly. The sitting government requested the presence of international observer missions to legitimate the election as “democratic” in spite of these human rights restrictions. Rather than transforming local practices to conform with internati…
Productive work and subjected labor
The implementation of child rights legislation in the African nation of Sierra Leone has revealed children articulating novel values for education and labor. Corporal punishment was used to reinforce for children the importance of schooling and uncompensated household labor to their development as people. With its legal banning, children are forming values that conflict with those held by elders and with rights doctrine itself. They differentiate…
Ebola Through a Glass, Darkly
The Ebola epidemic unfolded in radically divergent manners in two neighboring villages in Sierra Leone, with one recording 40 cases and 20 deaths and the other recording zero cases, though they are located only 100 meters apart. Presented with identical information about Ebola's cause and modes of transmission, one chief reacted by attempting to shield his village from outside knowledge and influence, encouraging his people to continue their norm…
Producing Ebola
Producing Ebola:Creating Knowledge In and About an Epidemic Catherine Bolten and Susan Shepler Try to remember what it was like during the fall of 2014. Ebola was always in the news, the virus was spreading and people were dying at an increasing rate in West Africa. Although there should have been ways to stop it, more and more people were falling ill. In the United States, there was near panic about the possibility of it coming here. In Septembe…
Man or Monster? The Trial of a Khmer Rouge Torturer by Alexander Laban Hinton, Durham, NC
The Paradox of Planning
Post-war Sierra Leone has experienced a population explosion that has raised questions among rural farmers about the relationship between family size and poverty. Agricultural decline and the high cost of schooling are not prompting parents to articulate a desire for smaller families; rather, they highlight that the uncertainty around articulating the "right" number of children is unresolvable because the ability to send children to school is pre…
Usurious strangers and “a better tomorrow
Rice was historically a “total social phenomenon” in Sierra Leone, molding rural identities through farming. Crop yields are rapidly declining, forcing change among people who once claimed to be “wealthy” from rice and now face severe food insecurity. In response to change, they can take out loans—offered by “strangers”—to continue farming rice, or they can “diversify” and farm alternative crops. Low rice yields largely condemn those who accept a…
Youth and sustainable peacebuilding
Sierra leone (13 works) · Political science (12 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Law (8 works) · History (7 works) · Ethnology (5 works) · Geography (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Socioeconomics (5 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (4 works)