Paper short abstract:

Based on recent field research carried out in the CAR, this paper will explore the impact of the CAR conflict on urban governance in Bangui, focusing on the pluralisation of non-state actors involved in governance at the local level and competing for control of the urban space.

Paper long abstract:

Following the military coup by the Seleka coalition in 2013, violence broke out in Bangui. As a result of the Anti-balaka offensive in the capital in December 2013, Muslim inhabitants were forced into exile or to seek refuge in the Muslim enclave of PK5, leading to a lasting reconfiguration of the urban space. New occupants have retained property seized during the war, while armed actors remain rooted in several districts of Bangui. Multiple "autonomous zones" (Lombard, 2016) where the state and public services first appear as non-existent emerged following the war, not only in the hinterland but also in the capital.

However, this apparent "absence of the state" does not equate with the absence of authority. In these spaces, armed actors tend to supplant public authorities in providing security and regulating access to land and income. In the PK5 district, self-defence groups actively engage in local governance by performing functions that traditionally fall under state authority (collecting taxes, judging cases, ensuring protection). These locally rooted groups interact with populations according to a protection vs. extortion arrangement in constant negotiation (Vlassenroot and Delaleeuwe, 2008). Populations are thus caught up in a complex system of power relations made of various constraints and opportunities deriving from different state and non-state authorities which coexist at the local level. This paper will explore these new "configurations of power" (Roitman, 1999) and how these pluralised forms of authority maintain ambiguous relationships, not only characterised by rivalries but also by negotiations and reciprocities (Raeymaekers and al, 2008).

Paper short abstract:

This paper will focus on how local communities mobilized and responded to the twin-threats of extremist attacks and inter-communal clashes in Jos and Kafanchan, two contested urban centres in central Nigeria. It empirically examines how non-state security groups manage to secure their localities.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will focus on non-state security groups (NSSGs) in Jos and Kafanchan, two contested urban areas in central Nigeria. Both settings are enmeshed in indigene-settler conflicts that have translated into bouts of large-scale violence over the last three decades. Unlike Jos, however, Kafanchan has not experienced any bombing by Boko Haram. Looking at NSSGs in these two settings side by side promises to be interesting and can serve as a window for peering into informal security governance in volatile urban settings. Of particular interest is how the longstanding conflicts in these areas shaped patterns of responses to Boko Haram attacks and how in turn the collective fear, anxiety and suspicion they spurred fed into existing inter-group animosities. Also worthy of attention is how Boko Haram attacks in Jos counter-intuitively forged cooperation across religious boundaries and contributed to dousing the scourge of large-scale riots. Looking at NSSGs in areas with histories of inter-group conflict can advance our understanding of the complex nature of civilian security networks in urban settings and the contextual factors that serve as the crucible for their emergence, development and survival. The paper draws from extensive fieldwork that involves Key informant interviews, mobile interviewing, observation, and FGDs in some of the most violent neighbourhoods and flashpoints in the two areas of interest.

Paper short abstract:

Agitations about resource governance brings forth questions about why a conflict is nonviolent or violent. We have the Ogoni and the Ijaw who live in exactly the same conditions, facing the same structural issues and yet made very different trajectories and choices in expressing their grievances.

Paper long abstract:

Having reached a political crises point, the Niger Delta conflicts have attracted significant local and international concerns and responsiveness. For instance, although several theses have discussed recurring and valid structural factors of the conflict such as resource governance, marginalization, and neglect, which do serve as bases for understanding the grievances, a unique question has remained unanswered: why have the Ogoni and the Ijaw, who have shared common, lived experiences, reacted differently to the same regional problems? What explains why one has chosen violence and the other a nonviolent contestation? This paper argues that three explanatory factors: narratives, leadership and organisation have determined the dynamics of choice of the distinct courses of action taken by each groups, which in turn suggests that they have not fought a common cause. They rather have been fighting context specific battles specifically constructed and framed for their individual communities. These three factors are important for explaining the 'how' and 'why' within the political trajectories of the Ogoni and Ijaw in terms of nonviolence and violence. This more nuanced perspective provides a new context to the knowledge that each group employs distinct strategies in constructing its conflict, hence, each group works towards some context specificity of their communities.

Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the settlement of displaced people in two Somali cities, this paper examines how a range of international and local actors negotiate urban property and develop regimes of regulation and control.

Paper long abstract:

Rapid urbanisation in Somalia is driven by in-migration of displaced people, many of whom settle in camps. Although such camps are spaces for disposing of 'bare life' and institutionalised sites of exclusion, they are also characterised by socially messy and continuously evolving relations of space and power, violence and displacement. Drawing on field work in 2017 and 2018 with displaced people in Somali cities, the paper analyses claims to property and the (often violent) competition to uphold these claims as struggles to establish sovereignty. We compare dynamics in two Somali cities, Mogadishu and Bosaaso, and show how a broad range of international and local actors, including displaced people themselves, negotiate (urban) property and develop regimes to regulate and control it. Even without formal land-use policies or legislation, these actors establish relations of property that guide and foster claims of authority while rendering the lives and livelihoods of displaced people precarious and insecure. Property relations in urban camps demonstrate that such spaces are contested, subject to struggles for profit and power, and are embedded in the global as well as urban political economy - both shaped by and simultaneously shaping the protracted Somali conflict.

Paper short abstract:

The 2017 post-election violence that erupted in informal settlements of Nairobi pointed not only to the noted national narratives of ethnic divisions in Kenyan elections but also to more localized contests. This paper explores these more localized narratives that drove these violent skirmishes.

Paper long abstract:

Violent elections in Kenya are nothing new. The 2017 post-election violence that erupted in various informal settlements of Nairobi pointed not only to the noted national narratives of ethnic divisions in Kenyan elections but also to more localized contests. This paper explores these more localized narratives that drove these violent skirmishes with specific reference to Kawangware and Mathare North slums. In so doing, the paper seeks to explain why these areas are vulnerable to violent skirmishes accompanying the (often ethnically) divisive elections in Kenya and the implications of these conflicts for the future of urban politics in the informal settlement areas of Nairobi.