Hijacking civil society: the inside story of the Bakassi Boys vigilante group of south-eastern Nigeria
Hijacking civil society: the inside story of the Bakassi Boys vigilante group of south-eastern Nigeria
复制标题
劫持民间社会：尼日利亚东南部巴卡西男孩治安组织的内幕故事
DOI：
10.1017/s0022278x06002291
复制
发表时间：
2007
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
K. Meagher
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
K. Meagher
对非洲暴力私刑主义兴起的分析越来越集中在非洲社会的“不文明”特征上。这篇文章质疑诉诸文化或工具主义的解释，其中私刑被描绘成一个回归暴力的土著机构的法律和秩序的基础上秘密社团和神秘主义的做法，或被视为一个产品的当代制度环境的庇护和腐败，其中青年争取他们的赞助资源的份额。通过对尼日利亚东南部臭名昭著的Bakassi Boys民团的兴起和脱轨的叙述，揭示了当代非洲民团主义的社会和政治复杂性。基于广泛的实地调查中的鞋生产商的阿坝谁最初形成了巴卡西男孩在1998年，本文跟踪的过程中，通过流行的安全安排的发展，随后被劫持的机会主义的政治官员从事权力斗争之间的国家和联邦政府。详细介绍了政治劫持过程中所涉及的战略和斗争，这内部帐户的巴卡西男孩揭示了潜在的弹性公民的正义和公共责任的概念在当代非洲。
Analyses of the rise of violent vigilantism in Africa have focused increasingly on the ‘uncivil' character of African society. This article challenges the recourse to cultural or instrumentalist explanations, in which vigilantism is portrayed as a reversion to violent indigenous institutions of law and order based on secret societies and occultist practices, or is viewed as a product of the contemporary institutional environment of clientelism and corruption in which youth struggle for their share of patronage resources. The social and political complexities of contemporary African vigilantism are revealed through an account of the rise and derailment of the infamous Bakassi Boys vigilante group of south-eastern Nigeria. Based on extensive fieldwork among the shoe producers of Aba who originally formed the Bakassi Boys in 1998, this article traces the process through which popular security arrangements were developed and subsequently hijacked by opportunistic political officials engaged in power struggles between the state and federal governments. Detailing the strategies and struggles involved in the process of political hijack, this inside account of the Bakassi Boys reveals the underlying resilience of civil notions of justice and public accountability in contemporary Africa.