Looking Beyond Spring for the Season: An African Perspective on the World Order after the Arab Revolt

There is much misunderstanding today about the decision of African countries not to endorse the military intervention in Libya undertaken by France, Great Britain, and the United States in conjunction with a few Arab States. This act of non-cooperation is the result of a tension that is much deeper and, contrary to punditry, goes to the core of the future of global governance and international morality today. This tension arises from two clashing positions: (1) the tendency of a fraction of states frequently self-designated as the West to usurp the mantle of international community, and (2) the longstanding objection from ‘Africa’ that the will of the international community may be appropriated by a small fractions of its constituents, however powerful. The underlying opposition extends today to all domains of international law, from the inception of law (in this case UN resolutions), to its interpretation and implementation, to the appreciation of its execution, or judgment.

Hoy día hay un fuerte malentendido sobre la decisión de los países africanos de no apoyar a la intervención militar en Libia emprendida por Francia, Gran Bretaña y los Estados Unidos en conjunción con algunos estados árabes. Este acto de no cooperación es el resultado de una tensión que es más profunda, y contraria al pronóstico de los llamados expertos, que va al núcleo del futuro del gobierno global y la ética internacional actual. Esta tensión proviene de dos posiciones conflictivas: (1) la tendencia de una fracción de estados autodesignados frecuentemente como el occidente que usurpa la capa de la comunidad internacional, y (2) la perdurable objeción de ”África” a que la voluntad de la comunidad internacional pueda ser destinada a pequeñas fracciones de sus constituyentes, aún poderosas. La oposición subyacente se extiende hoy en día a todos los dominios de la ley internacional, desde el comienzo de la ley (en este caso, las resoluciones de las Naciones Unidas).

今天,对于非洲国家不同意法、英、美联手一些阿拉伯国家对利比亚进行军事干预的决定,仍然存在很大误解。这种不合作行为是一种紧张状态的结果,与专家意见相反,这种紧张正成为未来全球治理以及今日国际道德的核心。它产生于两种相互冲突的立场：(1)一部分惯常自命为西方的国家侵害国际共同体外表的倾向;（2）“非洲”长期存在的反对： 国际共同体的意志有可能被一小部分成员（不管多强大）所盗用。今天,潜在的反对正从法律（本例中即联合国决议）的开端延伸到国际法的所有领域。     

One hundred years of suffering? “Humanitarian crisis photography” and self-representation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Humanitarian images streaming from the ongoing conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are not “new”. In fact, contemporary aid and journalistic images strikingly mimic photographs created a century earlier during the Congo Reform Association’s humanitarian attack on Leopold II’s actions in the Congo Free State. This article explores the consistency of these photographic forms and their surrounding text, showing how the images of suffering are not simple reproductions of observed reality but carry personal, local and political meaning. By analysing image content as well as the subject and photographer’s experiences of image creation, this article expands beyond realist objectivity to encompass the subjects’ visual embodiment of subjective desires and expectations. Specifically, I examine how the photographic space composed of the photographer, camera and subject, becomes an intersection replete with competing expectations, hopes and tensions. To situate these images and their subjective, political and humanitarian weight within the DRC itself, I conclude with analysis of how the Congolese choose to present themselves to a different audience: themselves.     

Depictions and reflections: photographing visualizations of masculinities in Afghanistan and Democratic Republic of the Congo

In this photo-essay, I reflect upon my research for various NGOs over the years on gender issues in conflict areas, using my work in Afghanistan and DR Congo as example. I reflect on both the ways in which masculinities are represented in conflict-affected countries as well as by outside agents, and on the ways in which NGOs produce this kind of knowledge and my own positionality within these processes.     

Sacred remittances: money,migration and the moral economy of development in a transnational African church

While remittances have come to play an important part in debates about migration and development, the link between religion, migration and transnational financial flows has yet to be understood in its full complexity. Drawing upon a multi-sited ethnography of a transnational African church, this article addresses this overlooked dimension of migrant transnationalism by analysing how religious donations converted into ‘sacred remittances’ produce a moral economy of religious life shaped by a politics of belongings at various scales. The article discusses the social meaning that diasporic actors attach to religious donations sent to the homeland (the Congo) and how this compares to the practice of sending remittances to family members. The article also argues that transnational circulation of sacralised money operates within a field of meanings and practices associated with moral expectations, entitlements and differentiated regimes of value. Sacred remittances, as ‘global money’, may generate a diversity of transnational linkages between donors and recipients but they remain embedded in landscapes of status and power.     

Violent continuities: telling stories of one sexual minority life in the African Great Lakes region

This article examines the multi-layered continuities of violence experienced, navigated and narrated by those in the Great Lakes region from the perspective of one life. Drawing on the unfolding life stories of Alex, a sexual minority refugee in Uganda, it focuses upon the complex predicament of persecution and marginalisation of the region’s sexual minorities, as they navigate protracted political conflict, displacement and wider intersecting forms and sources of violence. This article aims to draw attention back to the lived realities of violence as they are interpreted and articulated through time and space in situated acts of speaking. An ethnographic life stories approach compels us to consider the agency of those who navigate complex constellations of intersecting and multiple forms of violence woven through the fabric of everyday life, the social topographies within which people navigate and the wider sociocultural, political and legal dimensions within which they live.     

Unintended consequences or ambivalent policy objectives? Conflict minerals and mining reform in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Since the early 2000s, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the international community have initiated a reform process in the artisanal mining sector to break the linkages between mineral extraction and violent conflict. Research on the reforms reaches different conclusions about their impact on conflict, governance and livelihoods, and usually focuses on one aspect of the reforms, accepting the objectives of the policy at face value. This discourse analysis of the objectives of reform policies aims to understand how they represent the problem, the solutions they envision and their proposed plans. The study applied the method of interpretive policy analysis to four policy documents issued between 2010 and 2012: the UN Group of Experts report, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict‐Affected and High‐Risk Areas, and the International Conference on the Great Lake Region (ICGLR) Regional Certification Mechanism (RCM) Manual. The study finds that the policies hinge on two seemingly commensurate objectives, varying between conflict‐free sourcing and promoting peace. We find that, in reality, these objectives may not align. We also find that much reform practice is geared towards conflict‐free sourcing, and is far less appropriate when it comes to promoting peace. This includes the tendency to implement the policies in conflict‐free zones, their narrow scope, the reliance on the government and their indifference to the impact of the reforms for poor miners. The findings suggest that exercising due diligence has become a goal in itself. This raises the question of whether giving buyers a clear conscience and developing a traceable and conflict‐free product has received more attention than improving the situation of the Congolese population.