Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Role of Marginalized Groups in Post-Conflict Reconstruction

芝加哥大学的研究生，约书亚步行者，博士的指导下，让科马罗夫，将进行博士研究如何通过新的社会文化形式，由于持续的危机出现，社会秩序可能得到维护。该研究将侧重于边缘化青年及其在重建刚果民主共和国（刚果民主共和国）姆布吉马伊社会秩序中的作用。刚果民主共和国的生活因20世纪70年代后的经济和冲突而发生了巨大变化，这些冲突在过去13年中不同程度地吞噬了该国。姆布吉马伊的街头儿童和钻石矿工是多方面危机的象征，这场危机削弱了姆布吉马伊居民称之为“团结”的信任模式和相互依存形式。“然而，作为边缘化的青年，他们似乎是社会复兴的源泉。初步研究表明，街头儿童和手工采矿者建立的关系似乎具有在刚果社会其他阶层中似乎越来越少见的那种团结的特点，研究员将对街头儿童和手工采矿者相互建立的社会和文化组织及其对重建社会秩序的影响进行广泛的人种学研究。将对矿工和街头儿童群体进行有组织和半有组织的访谈，收集他们的生活史，并持续观察他们的做法。为了收集关于这两个被边缘化的青年群体的看法的数据，研究人员还将采访其他城市居民，监测和分析当地媒体对这些青年的描述，这项研究将通过系统地调查社会文化结构的重建在外部进行的方式以及与正式重建努力的对话，为冲突后的政策制定做出贡献。它还将涉及在持续的国内危机期间和之后建立社会秩序的更广泛的理论。该项目还有助于社会科学家的教育。

University of Chicago graduate student, Joshua Walker, under the direction of Dr. Jean Comaroff, will undertake doctoral research on how social order may be maintained through new socio-cultural forms that arise as a result of sustained crisis. The research will focus on marginalized youth and their role in the rebuilding of social order in Mbujimayi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Life in the DRC has been dramatically transformed by the post-1970s economic and conflicts that have engulfed the country to differing degrees over the past 13 years. Street children and diamond miners in Mbujimayi are emblematic of a multifaceted crisis, which has weakened the patterns of trust and forms of interdependence that Mbujimayi residents call "solidarity." Yet as marginalized youth, they paradoxically appear to be a source of societal renewal. Preliminary research indicates that street children and artisanal miners create relationships which appear to be characterized by the kind of solidarity that seems increasingly rare in other segments of Congolese society.The researcher will conduct extensive ethnographic research on the kinds of social and cultural organization street children and artisanal miners create among one another and their implications for the remaking of social order. Structured and semi-structured interviews, the collection of life histories, and sustained observation of practices will be undertaken with groups of miners and street children. To gather data on perceptions of these two groups of marginalized youth, the researcher will also interview other city residents and monitor and analyze portrayals of these young people in local media.This research will contribute to post-conflict policy making by investigating systematically the ways in which the rebuilding of the socio-cultural fabric is ongoing outside and in dialogue with formal reconstruction efforts. It also will address broader theories of the creation of social order during and after periods of sustained civil crisis. This project also contributes to the education of a social scientist.