Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g78kv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-31T14:44:22.219Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Converts to Human Rights? Popular Debate About War and justice in Rural Central Sierra Leone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Steven Archibald  and
Paul Richards
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Internationally, war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002) is regarded as an instance of violent conflict driven by economic factors (attempts to control the mining of alluvial diamonds). Fieldwork (2000–01) in rural areas recovering from war suggests a very different picture. War victims and combatants from different factions stress the importance of political decay, corruption, injustice and the social exclusion of young people. Other studies confirm the picture. There is broadly based discussion in rural communities about how to address the injustices held to have been responsible for the war. It seems in line with wider debate about human rights. Are people being converted to international ideals? Applying a neo-Durkheimian perspective, the article shows that this discourse about rights is a product of local social changes brought about by the war itself. The article concludes by asking how it might be consolidated by rights-oriented reconstruction activity. Human rights in Sierra Leone are as much a local development as an imposed change. In this respect the study confirms the importance of local agency already argued by anthropologists who have studied the process of conversion to world religions.

Résumé

Au plan international, la guerre au Sierra Leone (1991–2002) est considérée comme un exemple de conflit violent poussé par des facteurs économiques (spécifiquement, des tentatives de contrôle de l'extraction minière alluviale de diamants). Des recherches menées sur le terrain (2000–2001) dans des régions rurales affectées par la guerre suggèrent une situation très différente. Les victimes de la guerre et ceux qui ont combattu auprès de factions différentes insistent sur l'importance de la dégradation du paysage politique, de la corruption, de l'injustice et de l'exclusion sociale des jeunes. D'autres études confirment cette situation. Un large débat s'est engagé au sein des communautés rurales pour identifier des moyens de lutter contre les injustices tenues pour responsables de la guerre. Ce débat semble correspondre à un débat plus large sur les droits de l'homme. Assiste-t-on à une conversion aux idéaux internationaux? Adoptant une perspective néodurkheimienne, l'article montre que ce discours sur les droits est un produit des changements sociaux locaux provoqués par la guerre elle-même. L'article conclut en demandant comment une action de reconstruction axée sur les droits peut permettre une consolidation. Au Sierra Leone, les droits de l'homme sont autant une émergence locale qu'un changement imposé. A cet égard, l'étude confirme l'importance de l'action locale déjà invoquée par les anthropologues qui ont étudié le processus de conversion aux religions du monde.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , August 2002 , pp. 339 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdullah, I. B. 1997. ‘Bush path to destruction: the origin and character of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF/SL)’, Africa Development 22 (3–4), special issue Lumpen Culture and Political Violence: the Sierra Leone civil war.Google Scholar
Abraham, A. 1978. Mende Government and Politics under Colonial Rule: a historical study of political change in Sierra Leone, 1890–1937. London: Oxford University Press; Freetown: Sierra Leone University Press.Google Scholar
An-Naim, Abdullahi A. 1997 ‘Expanding the limitsof imagination: human rightsfrom a participatory approach to new multilateralism’, in Schechter, M. (ed.), Innovation in Multilateralism. Tokyo, New York and London: United Nations University Press.Google Scholar
An-Naim, Abdullahi A. 1998. ‘Human rightsand the challenge of relevance: a case of collective rights’, in Castermans-Holleman, M., Hoof, F. Van and Smith, J. (eds), The Role of the Nation-state in the Twenty-first Century: human rights, international organizations and foreign policy: essays in honor of Peter Baehr. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Archibald, S., and Richards, P. 2001. ‘Cultivating Human Rights: addressing root causes of forced migration through rights-based humanitarianism’. Unpublished draft report, Human Rights and Forced Migration Project. London: Social Science Research Council.Google Scholar
Archibald, S., and Richards, P. 2002. ‘Seeds and rights: new approaches to post-war agricultural rehabilitation in Sierra Leone’, Disasters (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berdal, M., and Malone, D. (eds). 2001. Greed and Grievance: economic agendas in civil wars. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Collier, P. 2000. Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and their Implications for Policy. Washington DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
De Gaay Fortman, B. 2001. Penibel recht. Inaugurele Rede, Universiteit Utrecht, 21 Mei 2001. Utrecht: Studie- en Informatiecentrum Mensen- rechten (SIM).Google Scholar
de Waal, A. 1989. Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984–85. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1970. Natural Symbols. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1986. ‘The social preconditions of radical scepticism’, in Law, J. (ed.), Power, Action and Belief a new sociology of knowledge. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1987. How Institutions Think. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1993. In the Wilderness: the doctrine of defilement in the Book of Numbers. Sheffield: JSOT Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, M., and Ney, S. 1998. Missing Persons. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, M., Gasper, D., Ney, S., and Thompson, M. 1998. ‘Human needs and wants’, in Rayner, S. and Malone, E. (eds), Human Choice and Climate Change I. Columbus OH: Battelle Press.Google Scholar
Duffield, M. 2001. Global Governance and the New Wars. London: Zed Press.Google Scholar
Ferme, M. 2001. The Underneath of Things: violence, history, and the everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Governance Reform Secretariat. 1999. The Mano Dasse Chiefdom Consultation Report, 17–18 December 1999. Freetown: Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Government of Sierra Leone.Google Scholar
Governance Reform Secretariat. 2000a. The Kamajei Chiefdom Consultation Report, 12–13 June 2000. Freetown: Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Government of Sierra Leone.Google Scholar
Governance Reform Secretariat. 2000b. The Wonde Chiefdom Consultation Report, 5–6 July 2000. Freetown: Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Government of Sierra Leone.Google Scholar
Governance Reform Secretariat. 2000c. The Nomo Chiefdom Consultation Report, 11–12 July 2000. Freetown: Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Government of Sierra Leone.Google Scholar
Hood, C. 1998. The Art of the State: culture, rhetoric and public management. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Horton, R. 1971. ‘African conversion’, Africa 41 (1), 85–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, R., and Peel, J. D. Y. 1974. ‘Conversion and confusion: a rejoinder on Christianity in eastern Nigeria’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 10, 481–98.Google Scholar
Ifeka-Moller, C. 1974. ‘“White Power”: social-structural factors in conversion to Christianity, eastern Nigeria, 1921–66’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 8, 55–72.Google Scholar
Kandeh, J. 2001. ‘Subaltern terror in Sierra Leone’, in Zack-Williams, B., Frost, D. and Thomson, A. (eds), Africa in Crisis: new challenges and possibilities. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Klein Goldewijk, B., and de Gaay Fortman, B. 1999. Where Needs meet Rights: economic, social and cultural rights in a new perspective. Geneva: WCC Publications.Google Scholar
Last, M. 2002. ‘The Shari'a in Context: people's quest for justice today and the role of courtsin pre- and early colonial northern Nigeria’. Unpublished typescript, Department of Anthropology, University College London.Google Scholar
Muana, P. K. 1997. ‘The kamajɔi militia: civil war, internal displacement and the politics of counter-insurgency’, Africa Development 22 (3–4), 77–100.Google Scholar
Nordstrom, K. 1997. A Different Kind of War Story. Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Peel, J. D. Y. 1995. ‘For who hath despised the day of small things? Missionary narratives and historical anthropology’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 37 (3), 581–607.Google Scholar
6Perri, 1999. Morals for Robots and Cyborgs: ethics, society and public policy in the age of autonomous intelligent machines. Brentford: Bull Information Systems.Google Scholar
Peters, K. 2002. ‘The storm is not yet over? Interviews with ex-combatants from the war in Sierra Leone’. Unpublished typescript, Technology and Agrarian Development Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre.Google Scholar
Peters, K., and Richards, P. 1998a. ‘“Why we fight”: voices of youth ex-combatantsin Sierra Leone’, Africa 68 (1), 183–210.Google Scholar
Peters, K., and Richards, P. 1998b. ‘Jeunescombattantsparlant de la guerre et de la paix en Sierra Leone’, Cahiers d'études africaines 150–2, 581–617.Google Scholar
Rebel, H. 1982. Peasant Classes: the bureaucratization of property and family relations under early Habsburg absolutism, 1511–1636. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1986. Coping with Hunger: hazard and experiment in a West African rice farming system. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1995. ‘The versatility of the poor: indigenous wetland management systems in Sierra Leone’, GeoJournal 35 (2), 197–203.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1996. Fighting for the Rain Forest: war, youth and resources in Sierra Leone. Oxford: Currey for the International African Institute (reprinted with additional material 1998).Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1997. ‘Towardsan African Green Revolution? An anthropology of rice research in Sierra Leone’, in Nyerges, E. (ed.), The EcologyofPractice: studies of food crop production in sub-Saharan West Africa. Newark NJ: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1999. ‘New political violence in Africa: secular sectarianism in Sierra Leone’, GeoJournal 47 (special issue Grid-Group Cultural Theory, ed. V. D. Mamadouh), 433–42.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 2002a. ‘Militia conscription in Sierra Leone: recruitment of young fighters in an African war’, Comparative Social Research 20 (special issue The Comparative Study of Conscription in the Armed Forces, ed. L. Mjøset and S. van Holde), 255–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, P. 2002b. ‘Green Book millenarians? The Sierra Leone war from the perspective of an anthropology of religion’, in Kastfelt, Niels (ed.), Religion and Civil War in Africa. London: Hurst.Google Scholar
Richards, P., Archibald, S., Jusu, M., and Zombo, P. 2001. ‘Productive ActivitiesProgramme III (Year 2000): an evaluation’. Unpublished report. Freetown: CARE-Sierra Leone.Google Scholar
Sivan, E. 1995. ‘The enclave culture’, in Marty, M. (ed.), Fundamentalisms Comprehended. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, M., Ellis, R., and Wildavsky, A. 1990. Cultural Theory. Boulder CO and San Francisco: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Vernon, A. 1993. African Americans at Mars Bluff, South Carolina. Baton Rouge LA and London: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Walzer, M. 1983. Spheres of justice: a defence of pluralism and inequality. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar