Content uploaded by Kristof Titeca
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Kristof Titeca on May 12, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
The “Masai” and Miraa: Public Authority, Vigilance and Criminality in a Ugandan Border Town
Abstract
Recent studies on vigilante groups show how they often begin as popular schemes for imposing order, before degenerating into violent militias which contribute in turn to social and political disorder. The Masai, a group of khat sellers and consumers in the Ugandan border town of Bwera, represent a more complex case. By using vigilance tactics in the provision of security, the Masai actually help to shape public authority within Bwera town instead of creating institutional chaos. They also provide a range of services, imposing a degree of order on illegal cross-border activities in the area. However, a closer look at the Masai shows that their vigilance activities are mainly performed out of self-interest, as a quid pro quo enabling them to continue their illegal activities of smuggling, general criminality outside town and illegal drug use. Therefore they straddle the ‘crime or social order’ dynamic, representing a criminal gang of illegal drug traffickers which also provides services for public community interests. As such, they contribute to both order and crime.
... Belgian historian and anthropologist, Jan Vansina (1992, p. 26), aptly makes this point in arguing that, "Despite appearances, the notion that Africans were forever on the move is a baseless stereotype." The only exceptions were groups such as the Masai and Bedouins, who were and continue to be nomadic (Asiwaju 1993;Coast 2002;Hüsken and Klute 2010;Titeca 2009). The economic and sociocultural lives and practices of nomadic African groups such as these remain uid and defy nation-state borders to date. ...
This book examines Africa-Europe relationships and intra-Africa relationships vis-à-vis migration. It analyses the African integration project that is being used to effectively manage migration within Africa and across its RECs, and harnessing it for development.
The book presents debates related to the EU’s hardening and securitisation of its external border against migrants from Africa. It shows that migration actually challenges Africa-European relations, which is discussed as an important theme in this book.
Authors in this book volume investigate several issues ranging from conundrums relating to migration between Africa and Europe to migration within Africa, but also in relation to borders and boundaries, its bearing on regional and continental integration and the significance of this in terms of relations between Africa and Europe. This book volume brings into conversation issues relating to the governance of migration for development, social cohesion and regional integration.
... Belgian historian and anthropologist, Jan Vansina (1992, p. 26), aptly makes this point in arguing that, "Despite appearances, the notion that Africans were forever on the move is a baseless stereotype." The only exceptions were groups such as the Masai and Bedouins, who were and continue to be nomadic (Asiwaju 1993;Coast 2002;Hüsken and Klute 2010;Titeca 2009). The economic and sociocultural lives and practices of nomadic African groups such as these remain uid and defy nation-state borders to date. ...
The historical continuities around migration suggest that it not only is a potent force and phenomenon but also has the capacity to transform societies. Africa-Euro migrations point to the need to move beyond a narrow, misinformed populist narrative of a flood of African refugees and migrants flowing into Europe. Further, intra-Africa migration, which is characterised by, among others, cross-border informality, continues to be marginalised, so are other so-called informal actors. Indeed, migration continues to stir a xenophobic backlash in many African countries, which places migrants from within Africa in a limbo. This indeed calls for proactive and robust social protection mechanisms at the level of regional economic communities. These narratives, which this volume has examined, point to the need for effective migration governance, which will lead to better regions and inclusive development.
... Belgian historian and anthropologist, Jan Vansina (1992, p. 26), aptly makes this point in arguing that, "Despite appearances, the notion that Africans were forever on the move is a baseless stereotype." The only exceptions were groups such as the Masai and Bedouins, who were and continue to be nomadic (Asiwaju 1993;Coast 2002;Hüsken and Klute 2010;Titeca 2009). The economic and sociocultural lives and practices of nomadic African groups such as these remain fluid and defy nation-state borders to date. ...
Migration has been dominating the national, regional, and global scholarly discourse in recent years. Recent global estimates indicate that 3.4 percent of the world’s population, about 258 million people, are international migrants and all countries are origins and destinations of human migration. Poverty and inequality constructed within the dominant national economic paradigm compounds the problematics of migration. Consequently, the United Nations (UN) initiated the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty in all its forms; however, that there is a nexus between migration and sustainable development is not in doubt. But the nexus between migration and sustainable development is not a one-way traffic; rather, it is a two-way traffic. In other words, there is a reciprocal relationship between migration and sustainable development. Thus, while migration affects sustainable development, conversely, sustainable development influences migration. The study concludes that while documented migration tends to beget sustainable development, undocumented voluntary international migration tends to endanger it. Conversely, while sustainable development is likely to increase documented migration, lack of it tends to increase undocumented migration. For migration to be a win-win for both origin and host countries, the study recommended that an effective global policy on migration that can reduce undocumented voluntary international migration and encourage documented international migration is a harbinger for sustainable development which can enhance global prosperity, peace, and security. This chapter is essentially a desktop study relying solely on secondary data.
... Belgian historian and anthropologist, Jan Vansina (1992, p. 26), aptly makes this point in arguing that, "Despite appearances, the notion that Africans were forever on the move is a baseless stereotype." The only exceptions were groups such as the Masai and Bedouins, who were and continue to be nomadic (Asiwaju 1993;Coast 2002;Hüsken and Klute 2010;Titeca 2009). The economic and sociocultural lives and practices of nomadic African groups such as these remain uid and defy nation-state borders to date. ...
Migration is a force that has led to the transformation of modernity (Papastergiadis, The turbulence of migration: Globalization, deterritorialization and hybridity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000). This transformation has taken many forms and continues to do so. In order to better understand the complexity of the situation, this book addresses both the migration flows and processes within Africa and between Africa and Europe. The continent of Africa is characterised by extensive interactions across its artificial and contiguous borders and borderlands. In addition, there are efforts at regionalism, and therefore, the question of whether efforts to integrate Africa, through the regional economic communities, could be informed by lessons and parallels drawn from across Africa is tackled in this book. And given that the issue of migration is challenging intra-Africa relationships as well as its relationships with other regions of the world, such as Europe, the question of how migration can be managed to trigger socio-economic transformation and development in Africa is discussed in the African context, but also in light of the experiences of the EU.
... 685) ('traditional leaders' being one of them). The 'public' in public authority, is by authors such as Lund (2006), Titeca (2009), Hansen & Stepputat (2001) and Hagmann & Péclard (2010) identified as forms of 'stateness ', or 'statehood', or 'doing the state', by non-state actors providing order, governance and public services. These provisions are important to legitimise their authority (Hansen & Stepputat 2001). ...
This paper explores adaptive approaches to development programmes that aim at improving service provision in underperforming sectors in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). It does this through a case study of the Integrated Maji Infrastructure and Governance Initiative for eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's (IMAGINE) public‐private partnership model for water provision. The processes and decisions that culminated in IMAGINE's model emphasize the need for programming that is culturally and politically aware, responsive to events, learns in real‐time, is entrepreneurial, and works with the grain of local institutions to support change. Detailed case studies of such ways of working are crucial for programmes that seek to challenge and reform the status quo in FCAS. The paper is based on 42 semi‐structured interviews conducted in the summers of 2019 and 2020. They reflect the broad spectrum of actors – individuals, public authorities, and organisations – involved in IMAGINE's evolution. The narrative focuses on IMAGINE's attempts to professionalise and commercialise Goma's water sector. It shows how as IMAGINE repeatedly adapted to ground realities, it took on the characteristics of a public authority, thereby, engendering backlashes that threated its longer‐term goals. However, by revisiting its initial values and logics it was able to get things done and achieve it aims. IMAGINE's story suggests that adaptive programmes should put politically savvy local development professionals in key positions and enable them to carefully construct coalitions of allies across the systems they aim to disrupt. This may also require them to revisit and adapt their initial ideas, guiding principles and values as greater understandings of development problems are gained. A pubic authorities lens, attuned to the logics programmes seek to address and introduce to FCAS, may help analysts to foreground the implications of such adaptations.
This article explores how state and non-state actors claim public authority in areas of contested sovereignty and limited statehood. It develops the concept of the frontier as a point of departure. The frontier is classically defined as a zonal space of overlapping or contested authority and has long been a site of collaboration between state and non-state actors. Contemporary frontiers, I argue, exhibit two key aspects. First, as a relationship of liminality that applies not only to the geography of the state, but also particular domains of statehood. I highlight three domains in particular: the symbolic domain, where the state is imagined as a collective actor; the contractual domain, which depends on the use of public services to establish a social contract; and the protective domain, the classic Hobbesian justification for the state as a provider of security. I argue that Serbia has sustained a near monopoly over the symbolic and contractual domains in North Kosovo yet is severely constrained in the protective domain. As a result, Belgrade has relied on outsourcing authority to local illicit actors to maintain leverage. These actors, however, have also carved out their own autonomous forms of authority and actively manipulate the ambiguous political boundaries in North Kosovo to their advantage. Exploring North Kosovo through a frontier framework, I argue, adds a crucial spatial dimension to the literature on non-state governance and highlights that frontiers are often not ‘ungoverned spaces,’ but rather sites of intensive state-making practices.
This article analyses the role of violence in the emergence of political leadership in village-communities of Nigeria’s Niger Delta. The article makes three overarching arguments. First, that individuals involved in violent militancy and youth cultism (gangs) use violence to attain political power within communities in the Niger Delta. When they succeed, these individuals become the new elites in their communities. This power is often focused on appropriating traditional authority. Second, the use of violence to take control of traditional governance structures reduces the moral authority that legitimizes traditional leadership. Third, the struggle by everyday people and factions within villages to reclaim traditional authority from violent actors creates contentious leadership in communities. These arguments highlight the crisis being experienced by traditional forms of governance in Nigeria’s Niger Delta as a result of the proliferation of violence in the region. Based on empirical data obtained from ethnic communities heavily impacted by militancy and youth cultism in Rivers State, the article found that competitive struggles amongst the local elites in communities over the control of cult groups, and economic and political spaces of traditional authority shape the dynamics of cult wars, political violence and contentious leadership in the Niger Delta.
Well into 2018, the narrative of international migration continued being dominated by (especially media and populist) accounts of migrants from developing and least developed countries undertaking perilous journeys to Europe. The narrative tells of people desperately attempting to escape poverty (and, perhaps, war and conflict too) for better life overseas. With a focus on Africans, this chapter argues that “poverty” as an explanation of the purported unabated attempts by the migrants to go to Europe is too simplistic. Rather, the chapter considers informality and borders as meaningful concepts through which the type of migration to Europe that authorities and border agencies there seem to be failing to curb should be explained. It boils down to the influence of history on Africans and the way in which they fundamentally perceive and approach nation-state borders. Both of these factors also influence the African migrants’ orientation and attitudes towards the socioeconomic and political realities of a globalising world.
Studies and institutional reports have argued that youth violence is a precursor to national insecurity in Nigeria. Contrary to youth as an agent of transformation and national development, their recurrence in violent conflicts has continued to undermine the national security of the country. Such security backlash is further conflated by the protracted Boko Haram insurgency which has ruptured the nation security architecture, but also tugs on the sovereignty of the Nigerian state. While these phenomena have increasing implication for the country stability, youth violence across various communities in Lagos State, the economic nerve centre of the country has further put Nigeria’s economic prosperity and security architecture in dire strait. This security deficit is the prevalence of anomie and lawlessness in Ikorodu Local Government area of Lagos State, instigated by the crisis of urbanisation, land grabbing, demographic pressure and cultism. This study examines youth violence, state failure and the emergence of Vigilante Groups (OVG), as a crucial actor in curtailing violence in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State. Using a qualitative method as a frame of analysis, the study argues that the lack of state capacity, resulting in unemployment, abject poverty and poor socio-condition is responsible for the widespread widespread incidences of youth violence instigated by land grabbing and cultism in Ikorodu Local Government. The study concludes on the imperative of overhauling the security architecture of the state, to recognise vigilante groups legally and institutionally, as a complementary security outfit to the Nigerian police. More importantly, questions of poverty, unemployment and social dislocation should be put on the front burner of government developmental agenda to forestall hopelessness and frustration which are frequent condition breeding violence in Nigeria.
Social capital does not always promote democratic practices, but has different effects at different points. This dynamic is well characterized by a distinction between bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. This is analyzed through an examination of three community associations in Uganda. In particular, it is shown how linking social capital can negatively impact the association in general, and democratic governance in particular, if not accompanied by sufficient bonding, and bridging social capital.
The Opec boys in Uganda, fuel smugglers and political actors
The « Opec boys » are smuggling fuel from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Arua, Uganda. They are major economic actors, but also have strong political sway. This second economy has become a field of constant negotiation between them and the local politicians: on the one hand, the politicians need the political support of the Opec boys. On the other hand, the Opec boys need political protection against police repression and petrol confiscation.
The Europe-inspired notion of the state with a monopoly on tax-raising and violence is empirically difficult to find in large parts of Africa; it is only superficially internalised by state officials while it is alive in thinking and discourse as a pretence. In Africa south of the Sahara, (empirically) illegitimate monopolies of violence and oligopolies of vio¬lence coexist. Both could a) be more or less (empirically) legitimate and b) offer a varying degree of security and orientation. The article explores the scope and limitations of the notion of "oligopolies of violence".
This book researches the question of what the Russian Mafia is, and challenges widely held views of its nature. It charts the emergence of the Russian Mafia in the context of the transition to the market, the privatization of protection, and pervasive corruption. The ability of the Russian State to define property rights and protect contracts is compared with the services offered by fragments of the state apparatus, private security firms, ethnic crime groups, the Cossacks and the Russian Mafia. Past criminal traditions, rituals, and norms have been resuscitated by the modern Russian Mafia to forge a powerful new identity and compete in a crowded market for protection. The book draws on and reports from undercover police operations, in-depth interviews conducted over several years with the victims of the Mafia, criminals, and officials, and documents from the Gulag archives. It also provides a comparative study, making references to other mafia in other countries (the Japanese Yakuza, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, American–Italian Mafia and the Hong Kong Triads). The book has an introduction and conclusion and between these is arranged in three parts: I. The Transition to the Market and Protection in Russia (three chapters); II. Private protection in Perm (two chapters investigating the emergence and operation of the mafia in the city of Perm); and III. The Russian Mafia (three chapters).
This essay examines the changing perceptions of matatu crews from the 1970s to the present. In the early 1970s commuters and many Kenyans typically viewed the matatu operators as an important, enterprising group of people, contributing to the economic development of the new nation of Kenya. This perception changed drastically in the 1980s when commuters, and indeed many Kenyans of all ranks, increasingly saw the matatu operators as thugs engaging in excessive behaviour – using misogynistic language, rudely handling passengers, playing loud music and driving at dangerously high speeds. Worse, the matatu operators were forced to join cartels that fought against reform and enabled this kind of behaviour. Nevertheless, I argue that, in many ways, the commuters have been complicit in creating the notorious matatu man – a creature they purport to hate, and then have conveniently used as a scapegoat whenever they see fit. In other words, the commuters have created the monster and then attacked it in order to exorcise their collective guilt.
Opening Paragraph
This paper describes the emergence during the 1960s of two forms of neighbourhood organisation, drinking companies and vigilante groups, in Bugisu District in eastern Uganda. The main interest of these groups is that they were both explicit responses to a perceived state of anarchy and lawlessness. The drinking companies evolved to control the most popular, and the most dangerous, social activity: the drinking of beer. They were essentially voluntary associations which developed into forms of rotating credit association. The vigilantes, as a self-appointed police force, tackled the problem of community security in a different way and, patrolling their areas at night, were dedicated to the eradication of thieves and witches. Evolving at the same time and often in consort, both movements were united in their aim to provide a distinctive ‘Gisu Government’.
While newspaper reports typically describe anti-civilian violence in civil war as resulting from hatred or anarchy, there is an emerging literature that interprets these processes as calculated, strategic actions of war makers. We argue that this literature overestimates the strategic value of violence by focusing on conflicts where this strategy is used deliberately and on a massive scale. Our analysis examines the violence in a failed, peripheral rebellion in western Uganda and finds that the brutality was premeditated; however, the gains to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels were not military. Instead, we argue that anti-civilian violence in western Uganda stems from the financier-insurgent relationship that promoted a high level of violence in response to divergent interests, unequal access to information, and contracting limitations. In other words, civilians were victimized in order that the ADF could keep their outside funding.