The Politics of Portrayal in Violent Conflict

Abstract

A global discourse on cosmopolitan humanism can become tragically disconnected from how it plays out locally. By analyzing Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 campaign, this article examines how and why the “new war” discourse presented in Kony 2012 does not correspond to how an array of local actors frame the violence that took place in Uganda. It also highlights how the Kony 2012 narrative and the interventions it advocates are translating into “perverse consequences”: a militarization of the central African region and a decline in awareness and in funding for more complex security issues on the ground. Finally, insight is provided into why the development of cosmopolitan norms and laws favors strong states and institutions, while civilians on the receiving end of “humanitarian interventions” lack the power to define what rights should be protected, by whom and how, and have no way of holding the intervening “humanitarian” actors accountable for their actions.

Objects and subjects: Strategic use of childhood in the debate over the Canadian contribution to MINUSMA

“…. ], which have direct repercussions on the population targeted" (Gould, 2014(Gould, : 2011; see also Bhatia, 2005). The national news narrative reiterated that the deployment of Canadian troops to Mali would be equivalent to walking into a "combat zone" (The Globe and Mail, 2018d; see also Campion-Smith, 2017; The Globe and Mail, 2018a; Walkom, 2018), that Mali is a "safe haven for terror groups" (Fife and Chase, 2017; see also Brewster, 2016;LeBlanc, 2016) and "the deadliest place to serve for UN troops" (Chase, 2 March 2017).…”

“…Discourses on security—as “systems of meaning-production” (Shepherd, 2008: 25)—delineate what is possible within particular contexts and who are the beneficiaries of protection, with consequences for the security of societies (Wagnsson et al, 2010: 8). Discourses on conflict do not just describe specific conflict; they also justify and legitimize particular security practices, their nature, and scope (Gould, 2014: 208). Feminist scholars theorized how strategic discourse may shape our understanding and prescriptions of security (Kinsella, 2004; Shepherd, 2008; Tickner, 2001).…”

An assemblage approach to liquid warfare: AFRICOM and the ‘hunt’ for Joseph Kony

“…We gathered and triangulated information on facilities such as military bases, ‘cooperative security locations’ and ‘forward operation locations’, but also bureaucratic and military practices, M2M trainings and military assistance programmes, as well as private military contracting. In addition, information was gathered through interviews held with various actors involved in the assemblage during field research between 2007 and 2015 ( Gould, 2015 , 2016 ). 6…”

“…The AU, another military contributor to the Kony assemblage, was keen to (re)position itself as a regional conflict-solving mechanism (Interview 3). 17 The hunt for Kony provided an opportunity to pursue this course of action under the sympathetic eye of the international community ( Gould, 2015 ). Finally, Invisible Children’s Kony2012 campaign, and the ICC prosecutor’s participation in it, reinforced the threat perception that legitimized and increased the compulsory power of the military actors within the assemblage.…”

“… 6. Interviews were held with representatives of the African Union, Invisible Children, the International Criminal Court and the Ugandan military ( Gould, 2015 , 2016 ). …”