Armed politics
This cluster brings together research projects and activities that study the multiple expressions, dynamics and outcomes of armed politics. It covers a wide variety of state and non-state armed actors, including vigilante groups, militias and armed groups, which we consider as political authorities claiming the right to rule or to protect. Supported by long-term and engaged political ethnography in places such as the DR Congo, Bangladesh, Mali or Nigeria, it looks at how armed politics and technologies of control are being deployed to claim power over populations, territory and resources. This cluster starts from the assumption that in order to fully understand such armed politics and violent conflict at large, we need to recognize the social embeddedness of armed actors and to look at how their conduct is being reproduced by the wider society.
Projects
Social dynamics of private security sector development in west Africa
This project aims to explore how private security firms embody a specific expansion of market logics as a modality of governance and the exercise of violence.
Discourse of caste within Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhalese communities in the context of territorial, class and ethnic divisions
This project examines the interconnection of caste with ethnicity, territorialisation and language in Sri Lanka.
Social Resilience of Survivors of Sexual Violence in Eastern DRC: A Path to Reparation and Rebuilding the Social Fabric
This project investigates the socialization processes that (re-)configure (violent) security practices occurring in the civil wars of Central Africa.
The Social Anthropology of Security Practices in areas affected by recurring conflicts in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (Uvira, Fizi, Mwenga, and Djugu territories)
This project investigates the socialization processes that (re-)configure (violent) security practices occurring in the civil wars of Central Africa.
The jihadi phenomenon in the Lake Chad Basin
How to comprehend the jihadi phenomenon in the Lake Chad Basin with the tools of the political sociology of armed mobilizations?
The Spectre of Political Induced Mobility in Kenya
This research project aims to explore how historical land grievances and post-colonial structures have contributed to political induced violence that has led to different categories of im/mobilities.
Violent collective actions and the ‘democratic transition’ in Ethiopia
Ethiopia has remained in turmoil since its recent transition that begun in 2018.
The making of youth in violent conflict
Youths position themselves at the forefront of contemporary violent conflicts worldwide. While violent conflict has often been used as a synonym for (civil) war, for this special issue, we define it more broadly as conflict that involves (groups of) people resorting to violent action and physical violence against others.
Populism in the era of soundbite politics: A conversation with Journalists and Researchers from Southern and Eastern Africa as well as South and South-East Asia
Populism is a global phenomenon, yet it takes distinct local and regional shapes. Often conceptualized as a discursive style (cf. Laclau 2005), populism has increasingly been analysed through its socio-cultural performative elements (i.e., Ostiguy, Panizza and Moffit 2021)
Populism in conflict
Populism has become a buzzword in popular and media discourses in recent years. Academic debates on the concept of populism—what it is and is not, where to look for it, and its normative prescription—have been highly contested.
The moral politics of violent death in Bangladesh
This project wants to understand how rebel groups and societies deal with violent death as a part of civil strife.
Martyrdom and propaganda ontologies in Maoist India
In writings produced by the Naxalite Maoist movement in India, martyrdom features extensively.
Urban youth gangs in Goma and Kisangani (DRCongo): the role of violence in subject formation
Globally violent conflict is becoming increasingly urban.
Representations of Violence in Literature and Other Media
This doctoral school aims to critically reflect on the concept of violence and provide insight into its literary and media representations.
Dataset on political violence in Bangladesh
This project starts from a new dataset on political violence in Bangladesh. Based on four newspapers (one English, three Bengali) the project aims to map political violence in Bangladesh from 1991 to the present.
Centre for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID)
CRG is a key member of the Centre for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID), which conducts interdisciplinary research to strengthen knowledge about how the governance of societies in impoverished, marginal and/or conflict-affected places actually functions.
Adolescent Autocracies: Pro-government student groups in resurging authoritarian regimes
Students and universities have traditionally been considered bastions of (democratic) resistance.
A Tale of Two Crises: A Computer-aided Textual Analysis of Online Discourses and Narratives of Security during the Mamasapano Clash (2015) and Marawi Siege (2017)
In this project that combines a historical background of literary representation, social media and digital technologies, digitized and online texts published in the Philippines from 2001 to 2020 will be analyzed.
An imaginary Jihad? How knowledge construction on conflict zones generates transformation
This PhD project looks at several actors’ ‘violent imaginaries’ of the Malian conflict.
