That's just how it is Submission and victimhood in coping with violence Development Studies Association 3 November 2012 Claudia Seymour Department of Development.

“That's just how it is” Submission and victimhood in coping

with violence

Development Studies Association3 November 2012

Claudia SeymourDepartment of Development Studies School of Oriental and African Studies

University of [email protected]

Overview ‘Structures of violence’• Political and structural

violence

Coping• Resilience and agency• La débrouille • Submission • Victimhood

Conserving violence

Structures of violenceFounding violence (Das 2007)

• Resource extraction• Forced displacement• Land-identity-citizenship conflict (Prunier 2009)

Political violence•Mobutu: land wars, contested citizenship, violent ‘democratisation’, identity-based politics•1994 genocide in Rwanda•‘Africa’s World War’: 1996- 2003 wars•Continuing violence in the Kivus

• CNDP/M23; FDLR; Mayi-mayi/ militia; FARDC

•International political economy of violence• UN, humanitarian actors, ICC, media• Private sector

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Structural violence•Beyond ‘subjective’ violence (Žižek 2009)

•‘Chronic, historically entrenched, political-economic oppression’ (Bourgois 2001:8)

•‘Does not show’ (Galtung 1969: 173) ?•Limits on ‘human self-realisation’ (Galtung 1969)

•Generalised poverty, lack of access to basic services- health, education…

Analytical framework•‘Structures of violence’ (Bourdieu 1977, 1980)

•Violence not simply ‘survived’ (Bourgois 2001: 29)

•‘Law of conservation of violence’ (Bourdieu 2000)

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Resilience and agencyPsychological models• Trauma and psychopathology• Resilience • Explains how people are able to effectively cope with,

adapt positively to and thrive within conditions of risk and adversity (Rutter 1999, Masten 2001, Ungar 2004, Zraly 2008)

• Theoretical limitations

Agency•Acting within and influencing established social structures and relations, constructing and determining own life outcomes (Bourdieu 1977, Boyden 2000, Arnfred and Utas 2007)

• Tactical agency (de Certeau 1984, Marriage 2012)

• Finding ‘ways of using the constraining order’ (de Certeau 1984:30)

La débrouille Tactical agency•Making use of and discerning possible opportunities•‘to find a way’ or ‘to use one’s own means’

“to live despite it all… We depend on our intelligence- the capacity to know how to exploit our potential, to seize possible opportunities…”

Economic livelihood•Daily labour- fields, mines, portering; sex work; joining armed group

Rational decision-making•Bounded rationality (Simon 1957) ; ‘satisficing’

Short term survival•Risks•No engagement in structures of violence

SubmissionChosen mechanismLife-saving in conditions of militarised violenceSelf-protection within structures of violenceDefeat and powerlessness

“Inside we are destroyed.... We’re losing our morale. We are unable to defend ourselves. It’s the authorities who have become our enemy... We have realised that power is not ours, that there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves… We have learnt that anytime we try to defend ourselves, we’ll be punished by force.” “That’s just how it is.”

Acceptance psychologically protectivePerpetuating the structures of violence

“If we try to liberate ourselves or if we aim to be heroes, we’ll just be killed. So it’s better just to suffer”

VictimhoodWeakness as tacticPatronage •Traditionally relied on reciprocity, loyalty and protection•Monetization, distrust, poverty •-> inequality, weakness, dependence

Victimcy (Utas 2003)

•Presentation of oneself as a victim to access assistance•Symbolic interactionism (Goffman 1959) ; superficial, short term knowledge•Proxy agency (Bandura 2001)

•Capacity for discerning differentials in power and resources•International political economy of violence: vulnerability = material assistance

Blame•Victim-perpetrator discourses

• Threat, fear, competition• Political strategy of obscuring, distracting

•Meaning attribution• Psychologically protective explanation for individual lack of advancement

•Reinforces conflict dynamic

Conserving violenceEngaging with structures of violence •coping for short-term outcomes•submission and victimhood increase weakness and reinforce defeat:

“How do we look at the future? Life will always be like this. Or worse.”

Policy implications•Reflection on aid’s role in reinforcing structures of violence

ReferencesBourdieu, P., 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press: London. Bourdieu, P., 1989. Social Space and Symbolic Power. Sociological Theory 7 (1): 14- 25. Bourdieu, P., 2000. Pascalian Meditations. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bourgois, P., 2001. The power of violence in war and peace: Post-Cold War lessons from El Salvador. Ethnography, 2 (1), 5- 34.de Certeau, M., 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Das, V., 2007. Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary. London: University of California Press.

Fanon,F., 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Weidenfeld.

Galtung, J., 1969. Violence, Peace and Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research, 6 (3), 167- 191.

Goffman, E., 1959. Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books.

Marriage, Z., 2012. ‘Tactics!’ Capoeria & Security, weblog post 22 June 2012. Accessible at: http://capoeira-security.blogspot.com

Masten, A., 2001. Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56 (3), 227-238.

Prunier, G., 2009. Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and the making of a continental catastrophe. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rutter, M., 1999. Resilience concepts and findings: implications for family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 21 (2), 119-144.

Scheper-Hughes, N. and Bourgois, P., 2004. “Comments to “An Anthropology of Structural Violence.”” Current Anthropology. Volume 45, Number 3: 317- 318.

Ungar, M., 2004. A Constructionist Discourse on Resilience: Multiple Contexts, Multiple Realities Among At-Risk Children and Youth. Youth & Society, 35 (3), 341-365.

Utas, M., 2003. Sweet Battlefields: Youth and the Liberian Civil War. Uppsala University Dissertations in Cultural Anthropology. Žižek, S., 2009. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile Books Ltd.

Zraly, M. 2008. Bearing: Resilience among genocide-rape survivors in Rwanda. Unpublished PhD Thesis.