The threat of rebellion: claiming entitled personhood in Central Africa

Abstract

A recent anthropological literature on arms-carrying and violence has sought to understand these undertakings as modes of labour and work. In contrast, I focus on threats, specifically threats made in conjunction with rebellion in the Central African Republic (CAR). Doing so show what the violence/labour approach has missed. Far from seeking to adapt to the exigencies of flexible, uncertain labour circumstances, these men seek to leverage the interests of international interveners in Central African conflicts and revive a statist, entitlement-centred system in which getting paid indicates status, not work produced. As such, their threats are a critique of their expendability, and a critique of violence, at the same time as they perpetuate the importance of a capacity for violence as a political and personal asset.

Studying insecurity from relative safety — Dealing with methodological blind spots

“…Thurston, 2020; Hoffman & Verweijen, 2019; Tapscott, 2017 to name a few). While most of these studies address dynamics of conflict and insecurity, few studies were able to include data collected among those that occupy geographical and social spaces from which insecurity is allegedly emanating (a few important exceptions are Baaz & Stern, 2009, Lombard, 2016; Richards, 1996; Schomerus, 2021). Key to understanding the no-peace-no-war terrain is to recognize war or insecurity as social projects in which people decide to engage – ones that they favour over other social projects (Richards, 2005).…”

Tactical dissonance

“…The UWSA appears to adhere to the “conventionalization of rebellion,” which Louisa Lombard (2016b) describes as compelling armed groups to adopt identifiable registers, like flags and uniformed insignia. Further, they must fit armed threat into registers that state and international organizations can respond to, thereby forcing them to enact “the system of entitlement they see as ideal” (Lombard 2016a, 554).…”