Judith Verweijen
Biographic Data
| ID | 147724 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Judith Verweijen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Judith |
| FAMILY NAME | Verweijen |
| SIGNATURE | VERWEIJEN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sheffield |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4204-1172 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 438 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
The political ecologies of "green" extractivism(s): An introduction
What is so-called 'green' extractivism and where did it come from? The introduction to this Special Section examines the origins and implications of the concept, linking it to a long history of exploitation, dispossession and (neo)colonialism under the guise of green-washing notions such as 'sustainable development.' Conducting an in-depth literature review, we first revisit the concept of extractivism, exploring its origins, development and anal…
Dangerous environments: Environmental Peacebuilding's Technomoral Imaginary and Its Power-Knowledge Effects
In this article we critically analyze the emerging academic field and practice of environmental peacebuilding. We claim that both are saturated by a particular “technomoral imaginary” or a set of beliefs, normative assumptions, and views on desirable futures that betray unwavering faith in the power of science and technology to bring peace and development to the Global South by transforming environmental governance. This imaginary informs particu…
Unearthing extractive subjects: Power and subjectivity at the extractive frontier
Work in political ecology and related fields emphasizes the importance of subjectivities to understand power relations and dynamics in nature-society interactions. In practice, though, few studies provide detailed analyses of subject formation. Moreover, the role of subjectivities has remained underexplored in the literature on resource frontiers. This special issue addresses these gaps, exploring processes of subject formation in relation to the…
War, peace and geography: The perilous engagement with public policy toward armed conflict
Geographers engaging with policy debates on armed conflict in the Global South are confronted with a set of difficult questions that have no satisfying answers. In this provocation, I discuss three risks that appear inherent to policy engagement in this domain: the first is contributing to reproducing rather than upending a deeply unjust and unequal world order; the second is reinforcing colonial structures and epistemologies; and the third is fa…
Articulating sedimented subjectivities: Extractive subject formation in eastern DRC
In this contribution, we examine how people living around industrial gold mining concessions in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) view themselves in relation to the extractive industries. We apply Hall’s notion of articulation to grasp the layering of extractive subject formation in time and space, or what we call the “sedimentation of subjectivities”. The lens of articulation allows for a better understanding of how people engage with t…
Paths of authority, roads of resistance: Ambiguous rural infrastructure and slippery stabilization in eastern DR Congo
The evolving techniques of the social engineering of extraction: Introducing political (re)actions ‘from above’ in large-scale mining and energy projects
Pluralising Political Forests: Unpacking “the State” by Tracing Virunga's Charcoal Chain
Peering through the lens of illegal charcoal production in the forested areas of Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this paper makes a case for disaggregating the notion of “the state” to better capture “the political” in contemporary political forests. It argues that to identify the fluctuating importance of different dimensions of “stateness”, it is crucial to acknowledge the polymorphous socio‐spatial relations …
A microdynamics approach to geographies of violence: Mapping the kill chain in militarized conservation areas
Revisiting colonial legacies in knowledge production on customary authority in Central and East Africa
Renewed attention on customary authority in both scholarship and development interventions renders it pertinent to revisit how contemporary engagement with this form of authority is still informed by colonial legacies. These legacies include: first, the penchant to see customary authority as solely invested in 'chiefs', rather than being relational and multifaceted; second, compartmentalized approaches that emphasize chiefs' role as political aut…
Why we must question the militarisation of conservation
Brokering between (not so) overt and (not so) covert networks in conflict zones
There is a tendency to consider covert networks as separate from overt networks. Drawing on data from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we demonstrate that this is not the case and identify how covert and overt networks are mutually constitutive. While most studies of African brokers have relied on network metaphors like 'Big Men' and 'social membranes', we consider the embeddedness of 'covert' networks in 'overt' networks explicitly. We perf…
Rebel rule: A governmentality perspective
Much of the recent literature on rebel governance and violent political orders works with 'centred' and instrumental understandings of power. In this view, power is seen as exercised over subjects, and as situated in rebel rulers, governance institutions, or ruling networks. Drawing on the study of the armed groups known as 'Mai-Mai' in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this article instead adopts a governmentality perspective on rebel go…
Confronting the colonial: The (re)production of ‘African’ exceptionalism in critical security and military studies
Drawing on postcolonial theory, this article queries into the ways in which the concepts of militarism/militarization and securitization are applied to ‘African’ contexts. We highlight the selective nature of such application and probe into the potential reasons for and effects of this selectiveness, focusing on its signifying work. As we argue, the current selective uses of securitization and militarism/militarization in ‘Africa’ scholarship ten…
Navigating ‘taxation’ on the Congo River: The interplay of legitimation and ‘officialisation’
Based on comprehensive research among boat operators and navy personnel working on the Congo River (DRC), this article explores how assessments of ‘taxation’ are shaped by the interplay of legitimation and ‘officialisation’. As such, it draws upon and contributes to scholarly debates on taxpayers’ attitudes towards taxation. While boat operators resent having to pay a plethora of authorities, including the navy, along the Congo River, the article…
Civilian Resistance Against the Military in Eastern DR Congo: A Combined Social Navigation and Structuration Approach
Soldiers Without an Army? Patronage Networks and Cohesion in the Armed Forces of the DR Congo
This article analyzes the effects of patronage networks on cohesion in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It shows that while patronage networks provide support to individual military personnel, they undermine both peer and commander-subordinate bonding. They promote unequal service conditions and statuses and link these to extra-unit and extra-military forms of social identification, which are further reinforced by soldier…
The counterinsurgency/conservation nexus: Guerrilla livelihoods and the dynamics of conflict and violence in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo
The growing militarisation of nature conservation has refocused attention on the relations between counterinsurgency and conservation. This contribution analyses how these two phenomena entwine in the Virunga National Park, located in the war-ridden east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It examines how this entwinement relates to dynamics of conflict and violence, and how these dynamics shape and are shaped by the livelihood and resistanc…
Explaining fragmented and fluid mobilization in gold mining concessions in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
Luddites in the Congo: Analyzing violent responses to the expansion of industrial mining amidst militarization
The expansion of industrial mining in the war-ridden eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has provoked resistance from those depending directly and indirectly on artisanal mining for their livelihood, and has been faced with violent actions from politico-military entrepreneurs. By analyzing the interplay between armed and social mobilization against industrial mining in the Fizi–Kabambare region, this paper sheds new light on the relations be…
Strange Battlefield Fellows: The Diagonal Interoperability Between Blue Helmets and the Congolese Army
The literature on peacekeeping has paid scant attention to the interaction between peacekeeping troops and host country military. Addressing this gap in scholarly knowledge, this paper conceptualizes such interaction as ‘diagonal interoperability’. The latter is situated in-between ‘horizontal interoperability’ on the one hand, relating to interaction between different components of a peacekeeping mission, and ‘vertical interoperability’ on the o…
The agency of liminality: Army wives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the tactical reversal of militarization
The inherently unstable boundaries between military and civilian worlds have emerged as a main object of study within the field of critical military studies. This article sheds light on the (re)production of these boundaries by attending to a group that rarely features in the debates on the military/civilian divide: army wives in a ‘non-Northern’ context, more specifically the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Drawing upon the ‘analytical t…
Cows and guns. Cattle-related conflict and armed violence in Fizi and Itombwe, eastern DR Congo
This paper analyses the role of cattle in the entwined dynamics of conflict and violence in the Fizi and Itombwe region of South Kivu province, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. On the one hand, agropastoral conflict intensifies armed mobilisation, allowing armed groups to draw upon particular conflict narratives that generate popular and elite support. It also creates incentives for armed actors to engage in cattle-looting, or the…
Selling green militarization: The discursive (re)production of militarized conservation in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Armed mobilisation and the nexus of territory, identity, and authority: The contested territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge in eastern DR Congo
The closely intertwined notions of territory, identity, and authority are at the heart of conflict dynamics in the eastern DR Congo. Focusing on the territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge community in South Kivu, this article looks at the ways in which the nexus of territory, identity, and authority shapes and is shaped by armed mobilisation. Excluded from a customary chiefdom in the colonial era, the Banyamulenge, a community framed as ‘mig…
The counterinsurgency/conservation nexus: Guerrilla livelihoods and the dynamics of conflict and violence in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo
The growing militarisation of nature conservation has refocused attention on the relations between counterinsurgency and conservation. This contribution analyses how these two phenomena entwine in the Virunga National Park, located in the war-ridden east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It examines how this entwinement relates to dynamics of conflict and violence, and how these dynamics shape and are shaped by the livelihood and resistanc…
Selling green militarization: The discursive (re)production of militarized conservation in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo
The volatility of a half-cooked bouillabaisse: Rebel-military integration and conflict dynamics in the eastern DRC
In early 2012, Congolese army deserters formed the M23 rebel movement. This article analyses the insurgency and other armed group activity in the eastern DRC in the light of the politics of rebel-military integration. It argues that military integration processes have fuelled militarization in three main ways. First, by creating incentive structures promoting army desertion and insurgent violence; second, by fuelling inter-and intra-community con…
Military business and the business of the military in the Kivus
Contrary to dominant approaches that locate the causes for military entrepreneurialism in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo predominantly in criminal military elites, this article highlights the importance of the Congolese military's (FARDC) civilian context for understanding military revenue-generation. It analyses how the latter is shaped by structures of domination, signification and legitimisation that drive and are driven by the FARDC…
The political ecologies of "green" extractivism(s): An introduction
What is so-called 'green' extractivism and where did it come from? The introduction to this Special Section examines the origins and implications of the concept, linking it to a long history of exploitation, dispossession and (neo)colonialism under the guise of green-washing notions such as 'sustainable development.' Conducting an in-depth literature review, we first revisit the concept of extractivism, exploring its origins, development and anal…
From Autochthony to Violence? Discursive and Coercive Social Practices of the Mai-Mai in Fizi, Eastern DR Congo
This article explores the links between autochthony discourses and physical violence through a case study of a Mai-Mai group in the eastern DR Congo. While this group garners support by employing such discourses and related tropes ofautodéfense(self-defense), there are clear limits to the capacity of these narratives to mobilize for and legitimize violent action. Furthermore, much of the violence committed by the Mai-Mai is not informed directly …
The evolving techniques of the social engineering of extraction: Introducing political (re)actions ‘from above’ in large-scale mining and energy projects
Confronting the colonial: The (re)production of ‘African’ exceptionalism in critical security and military studies
Drawing on postcolonial theory, this article queries into the ways in which the concepts of militarism/militarization and securitization are applied to ‘African’ contexts. We highlight the selective nature of such application and probe into the potential reasons for and effects of this selectiveness, focusing on its signifying work. As we argue, the current selective uses of securitization and militarism/militarization in ‘Africa’ scholarship ten…
Explaining fragmented and fluid mobilization in gold mining concessions in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
Rebel rule: A governmentality perspective
Much of the recent literature on rebel governance and violent political orders works with 'centred' and instrumental understandings of power. In this view, power is seen as exercised over subjects, and as situated in rebel rulers, governance institutions, or ruling networks. Drawing on the study of the armed groups known as 'Mai-Mai' in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this article instead adopts a governmentality perspective on rebel go…
Soldiers Without an Army? Patronage Networks and Cohesion in the Armed Forces of the DR Congo
This article analyzes the effects of patronage networks on cohesion in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It shows that while patronage networks provide support to individual military personnel, they undermine both peer and commander-subordinate bonding. They promote unequal service conditions and statuses and link these to extra-unit and extra-military forms of social identification, which are further reinforced by soldier…
Luddites in the Congo: Analyzing violent responses to the expansion of industrial mining amidst militarization
The expansion of industrial mining in the war-ridden eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has provoked resistance from those depending directly and indirectly on artisanal mining for their livelihood, and has been faced with violent actions from politico-military entrepreneurs. By analyzing the interplay between armed and social mobilization against industrial mining in the Fizi–Kabambare region, this paper sheds new light on the relations be…
The agency of liminality: Army wives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the tactical reversal of militarization
The inherently unstable boundaries between military and civilian worlds have emerged as a main object of study within the field of critical military studies. This article sheds light on the (re)production of these boundaries by attending to a group that rarely features in the debates on the military/civilian divide: army wives in a ‘non-Northern’ context, more specifically the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Drawing upon the ‘analytical t…
Armed mobilisation and the nexus of territory, identity, and authority: The contested territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge in eastern DR Congo
The closely intertwined notions of territory, identity, and authority are at the heart of conflict dynamics in the eastern DR Congo. Focusing on the territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge community in South Kivu, this article looks at the ways in which the nexus of territory, identity, and authority shapes and is shaped by armed mobilisation. Excluded from a customary chiefdom in the colonial era, the Banyamulenge, a community framed as ‘mig…
Unearthing extractive subjects: Power and subjectivity at the extractive frontier
Work in political ecology and related fields emphasizes the importance of subjectivities to understand power relations and dynamics in nature-society interactions. In practice, though, few studies provide detailed analyses of subject formation. Moreover, the role of subjectivities has remained underexplored in the literature on resource frontiers. This special issue addresses these gaps, exploring processes of subject formation in relation to the…
Revisiting colonial legacies in knowledge production on customary authority in Central and East Africa
Renewed attention on customary authority in both scholarship and development interventions renders it pertinent to revisit how contemporary engagement with this form of authority is still informed by colonial legacies. These legacies include: first, the penchant to see customary authority as solely invested in 'chiefs', rather than being relational and multifaceted; second, compartmentalized approaches that emphasize chiefs' role as political aut…
Arbiters with guns: The ambiguity of military involvement in civilian disputes in the DR Congo
Based on extensive field research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), this article elucidates the logics, processes and readings surrounding certain ‘extra-military’ practices enacted by the Congolese army, namely the processing of various types of disputes between civilians. Exceeding the boundaries of the domain of ‘public security’, such activities are commonly categorised as ‘corruption’. Yet such labelling, founded on a suppo…
Pluralising Political Forests: Unpacking “the State” by Tracing Virunga's Charcoal Chain
Peering through the lens of illegal charcoal production in the forested areas of Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this paper makes a case for disaggregating the notion of “the state” to better capture “the political” in contemporary political forests. It argues that to identify the fluctuating importance of different dimensions of “stateness”, it is crucial to acknowledge the polymorphous socio‐spatial relations …
A microdynamics approach to geographies of violence: Mapping the kill chain in militarized conservation areas
Paths of authority, roads of resistance: Ambiguous rural infrastructure and slippery stabilization in eastern DR Congo
Civilian Resistance Against the Military in Eastern DR Congo: A Combined Social Navigation and Structuration Approach
Cows and guns. Cattle-related conflict and armed violence in Fizi and Itombwe, eastern DR Congo
This paper analyses the role of cattle in the entwined dynamics of conflict and violence in the Fizi and Itombwe region of South Kivu province, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. On the one hand, agropastoral conflict intensifies armed mobilisation, allowing armed groups to draw upon particular conflict narratives that generate popular and elite support. It also creates incentives for armed actors to engage in cattle-looting, or the…
Brokering between (not so) overt and (not so) covert networks in conflict zones
There is a tendency to consider covert networks as separate from overt networks. Drawing on data from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we demonstrate that this is not the case and identify how covert and overt networks are mutually constitutive. While most studies of African brokers have relied on network metaphors like 'Big Men' and 'social membranes', we consider the embeddedness of 'covert' networks in 'overt' networks explicitly. We perf…
Navigating ‘taxation’ on the Congo River: The interplay of legitimation and ‘officialisation’
Based on comprehensive research among boat operators and navy personnel working on the Congo River (DRC), this article explores how assessments of ‘taxation’ are shaped by the interplay of legitimation and ‘officialisation’. As such, it draws upon and contributes to scholarly debates on taxpayers’ attitudes towards taxation. While boat operators resent having to pay a plethora of authorities, including the navy, along the Congo River, the article…
Articulating sedimented subjectivities: Extractive subject formation in eastern DRC
In this contribution, we examine how people living around industrial gold mining concessions in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) view themselves in relation to the extractive industries. We apply Hall’s notion of articulation to grasp the layering of extractive subject formation in time and space, or what we call the “sedimentation of subjectivities”. The lens of articulation allows for a better understanding of how people engage with t…
Military business and the business of the military in the Kivus
Contrary to dominant approaches that locate the causes for military entrepreneurialism in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo predominantly in criminal military elites, this article highlights the importance of the Congolese military's (FARDC) civilian context for understanding military revenue-generation. It analyses how the latter is shaped by structures of domination, signification and legitimisation that drive and are driven by the FARDC…
The volatility of a half-cooked bouillabaisse: Rebel-military integration and conflict dynamics in the eastern DRC
In early 2012, Congolese army deserters formed the M23 rebel movement. This article analyses the insurgency and other armed group activity in the eastern DRC in the light of the politics of rebel-military integration. It argues that military integration processes have fuelled militarization in three main ways. First, by creating incentive structures promoting army desertion and insurgent violence; second, by fuelling inter-and intra-community con…
La « mère des armées » n'est pas encore morte: Des pratiques de justice (in)formelle dans les Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo
Cet article remet en cause l'idée d'une impunité « quasi-totale » parmi les forces armées congolaises en présentant une série de pratiques punitives et réparatrices ayant lieu hors du cadre de la justice militaire. Il analyse les différents mécanismes et logiques qui informent les pratiques « informelles » et « formelles » de la justice et explore comment ces pratiques sont vues et lues tant par les civils que les militaires, surtout par rapport …
Social Network Analysis and the De Facto/De Jure Conundrum: Security Alliances and the Territorialization of State Authority in the Post-Cold War Great Lakes Region
This paper presents an alternative reading of the evolution of the territorialization of state authority and security alliances in Africa's Great Lakes Region from that provided by Radil and Flint (2013). Rather than a general transformation in the direction of more territorially centralized states, patterns of state authority have remained variegated in the post-Cold War era, with continuing fracturing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It…
Arbiters with guns: The ambiguity of military involvement in civilian disputes in the DR Congo
Based on extensive field research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), this article elucidates the logics, processes and readings surrounding certain ‘extra-military’ practices enacted by the Congolese army, namely the processing of various types of disputes between civilians. Exceeding the boundaries of the domain of ‘public security’, such activities are commonly categorised as ‘corruption’. Yet such labelling, founded on a suppo…
Armed mobilisation and the nexus of territory, identity, and authority: The contested territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge in eastern DR Congo
The closely intertwined notions of territory, identity, and authority are at the heart of conflict dynamics in the eastern DR Congo. Focusing on the territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge community in South Kivu, this article looks at the ways in which the nexus of territory, identity, and authority shapes and is shaped by armed mobilisation. Excluded from a customary chiefdom in the colonial era, the Banyamulenge, a community framed as ‘mig…
From Autochthony to Violence? Discursive and Coercive Social Practices of the Mai-Mai in Fizi, Eastern DR Congo
This article explores the links between autochthony discourses and physical violence through a case study of a Mai-Mai group in the eastern DR Congo. While this group garners support by employing such discourses and related tropes ofautodéfense(self-defense), there are clear limits to the capacity of these narratives to mobilize for and legitimize violent action. Furthermore, much of the violence committed by the Mai-Mai is not informed directly …
Selling green militarization: The discursive (re)production of militarized conservation in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Explaining fragmented and fluid mobilization in gold mining concessions in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
Luddites in the Congo: Analyzing violent responses to the expansion of industrial mining amidst militarization
The expansion of industrial mining in the war-ridden eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has provoked resistance from those depending directly and indirectly on artisanal mining for their livelihood, and has been faced with violent actions from politico-military entrepreneurs. By analyzing the interplay between armed and social mobilization against industrial mining in the Fizi–Kabambare region, this paper sheds new light on the relations be…
Strange Battlefield Fellows: The Diagonal Interoperability Between Blue Helmets and the Congolese Army
The literature on peacekeeping has paid scant attention to the interaction between peacekeeping troops and host country military. Addressing this gap in scholarly knowledge, this paper conceptualizes such interaction as ‘diagonal interoperability’. The latter is situated in-between ‘horizontal interoperability’ on the one hand, relating to interaction between different components of a peacekeeping mission, and ‘vertical interoperability’ on the o…
The agency of liminality: Army wives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the tactical reversal of militarization
The inherently unstable boundaries between military and civilian worlds have emerged as a main object of study within the field of critical military studies. This article sheds light on the (re)production of these boundaries by attending to a group that rarely features in the debates on the military/civilian divide: army wives in a ‘non-Northern’ context, more specifically the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Drawing upon the ‘analytical t…
Cows and guns. Cattle-related conflict and armed violence in Fizi and Itombwe, eastern DR Congo
This paper analyses the role of cattle in the entwined dynamics of conflict and violence in the Fizi and Itombwe region of South Kivu province, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. On the one hand, agropastoral conflict intensifies armed mobilisation, allowing armed groups to draw upon particular conflict narratives that generate popular and elite support. It also creates incentives for armed actors to engage in cattle-looting, or the…
Confronting the colonial: The (re)production of ‘African’ exceptionalism in critical security and military studies
Drawing on postcolonial theory, this article queries into the ways in which the concepts of militarism/militarization and securitization are applied to ‘African’ contexts. We highlight the selective nature of such application and probe into the potential reasons for and effects of this selectiveness, focusing on its signifying work. As we argue, the current selective uses of securitization and militarism/militarization in ‘Africa’ scholarship ten…
Navigating ‘taxation’ on the Congo River: The interplay of legitimation and ‘officialisation’
Based on comprehensive research among boat operators and navy personnel working on the Congo River (DRC), this article explores how assessments of ‘taxation’ are shaped by the interplay of legitimation and ‘officialisation’. As such, it draws upon and contributes to scholarly debates on taxpayers’ attitudes towards taxation. While boat operators resent having to pay a plethora of authorities, including the navy, along the Congo River, the article…
Civilian Resistance Against the Military in Eastern DR Congo: A Combined Social Navigation and Structuration Approach
Soldiers Without an Army? Patronage Networks and Cohesion in the Armed Forces of the DR Congo
This article analyzes the effects of patronage networks on cohesion in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It shows that while patronage networks provide support to individual military personnel, they undermine both peer and commander-subordinate bonding. They promote unequal service conditions and statuses and link these to extra-unit and extra-military forms of social identification, which are further reinforced by soldier…
The counterinsurgency/conservation nexus: Guerrilla livelihoods and the dynamics of conflict and violence in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo
The growing militarisation of nature conservation has refocused attention on the relations between counterinsurgency and conservation. This contribution analyses how these two phenomena entwine in the Virunga National Park, located in the war-ridden east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It examines how this entwinement relates to dynamics of conflict and violence, and how these dynamics shape and are shaped by the livelihood and resistanc…
Why we must question the militarisation of conservation
Brokering between (not so) overt and (not so) covert networks in conflict zones
There is a tendency to consider covert networks as separate from overt networks. Drawing on data from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we demonstrate that this is not the case and identify how covert and overt networks are mutually constitutive. While most studies of African brokers have relied on network metaphors like 'Big Men' and 'social membranes', we consider the embeddedness of 'covert' networks in 'overt' networks explicitly. We perf…
Rebel rule: A governmentality perspective
Much of the recent literature on rebel governance and violent political orders works with 'centred' and instrumental understandings of power. In this view, power is seen as exercised over subjects, and as situated in rebel rulers, governance institutions, or ruling networks. Drawing on the study of the armed groups known as 'Mai-Mai' in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this article instead adopts a governmentality perspective on rebel go…
Pluralising Political Forests: Unpacking “the State” by Tracing Virunga's Charcoal Chain
Peering through the lens of illegal charcoal production in the forested areas of Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this paper makes a case for disaggregating the notion of “the state” to better capture “the political” in contemporary political forests. It argues that to identify the fluctuating importance of different dimensions of “stateness”, it is crucial to acknowledge the polymorphous socio‐spatial relations …
A microdynamics approach to geographies of violence: Mapping the kill chain in militarized conservation areas
Revisiting colonial legacies in knowledge production on customary authority in Central and East Africa
Renewed attention on customary authority in both scholarship and development interventions renders it pertinent to revisit how contemporary engagement with this form of authority is still informed by colonial legacies. These legacies include: first, the penchant to see customary authority as solely invested in 'chiefs', rather than being relational and multifaceted; second, compartmentalized approaches that emphasize chiefs' role as political aut…
Paths of authority, roads of resistance: Ambiguous rural infrastructure and slippery stabilization in eastern DR Congo
Political science (30 works) · Law (27 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Politics (23 works) · Law (22 works) · Political economy (17 works) · Democracy (13 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (13 works) · Geography (8 works) · Mining and Resource Management (8 works)