'Witchcraft' and conflict: Exploring alternative discourses of insecurity

这个项目的重点是探索三组问题：非洲边境社区如何理解和表达安全威胁，“巫术”在这些表达中以什么方式出现？反过来，非洲和西方的政策制定者如何理解和阐明这些社区面临的主要安全威胁，以及他们在多大程度上认为“巫术”？最后，西方研究人员和西方/非洲决策者应该如何参与这些不熟悉的安全话语，以及试图这样做会带来什么挑战？例如，学者和政策制定者现在基本上同意，不应该仅仅通过将军、间谍和其他国家行为者的眼睛来理解安全威胁，而应该通过个人和社区本身的眼睛来理解安全威胁，特别是那些受冲突影响地区的人。这种“人类安全”的观点使我们不仅——甚至主要——从外国军队或恐怖袭击的角度来理解不安全，而且还包括失业、饥饿、疾病和压迫。事实上，对于大多数人来说，后者通常是更为突出和实质性的安全问题。然而，令人惊讶的是，我们对非洲社区如何表达和感知他们自己的安全知之甚少——他们的声音很少出现在政策文件和学术研究中，尤其是那些超出人类学领域的研究。此外，在政治科学和历史中，很少有研究和理解土著安全叙事的工作，当他们谈到与西方思维方式截然不同的主题和信仰体系时。例如，在乌干达/南苏丹边境的社区，历史上已经开始使用“巫术”的语言和世界观来构建人类安全学者所理解的“安全问题”。事实上，一些人认为西方捐助者和他们自己的政府提倡的以人权为基础的司法和安全方法存在严重问题，因为他们以牺牲社区为代价来“保护”女巫。政策制定者和实践者在调和这些世界观与西方司法和治理体系方面面临着实际挑战。然而，更广泛地说，他们和对安全感兴趣的非洲学者面临着一个更广泛的挑战——如何研究、表达、参与和回应这些对社区意义深远、但从根本上与西方思维模式不一致的叙事。此外，研究人员如何能够和应该向社区提出如此敏感的话题？该项目将通过跨学科和跨大洲的高度创新合作，正面解决这些难题。其核心将是政治学家和历史学家之间的合作伙伴关系，他们将努力结合各自学科的不同方法，以探索巫术作为乌干达/南苏丹边境地区不安全的话语，并反思上面提出的更广泛的方法论和认识论问题。这项工作将在英国和非洲的历史、政治学、发展研究和人类学学者组成的一个核心小组与实践者和决策者之间进行更广泛的合作的背景下进行，他们将帮助设计方法，为实地调查提供建议，并通过参加在英国和非洲举行的定期讲习班共同生产产出。采用这种实验性的跨学科方法，将有可能在一个超越个人学科界限的动态和令人兴奋的知识空间中探索和辩论人类安全的本质——以及巫术话语在其中的地位。在此过程中，该项目将寻求挑战、重构和指导非洲研究、安全研究、历史和人类学以及政策界的关键辩论。

This project focuses on exploring three sets of questions: how do African borderland communities understand and articulate security threats and in what ways does 'witchcraft' feature in these articulations? How do African and Western policy-makers, in turn, understand and articulate the major security threats faced by these communities and how far do they consider 'witchcraft' within this? Finally, how should Western researchers and Western/African policy-makers engage with these unfamiliar (in) security discourses, and what challenges does attempting to do so pose?Scholars and policy-makers, for example, now largely agree that security threats should be understood not just through the eyes of generals, spies and other state actors but through those of individuals and communities themselves - particularly those in conflict-affected regions. This 'human security' perspective allows us to understand insecurity not just - or even primarily - in terms of foreign armies or terrorist attacks but also unemployment, starvation, disease and oppression. Indeed, the latter usually feature far more prominently and substantively as security concerns for most.We know surprisingly little, however, about how communities in Africa articulate and perceive their own (in) security - their voices rarely feature in policy papers and academic studies, particularly those beyond the realm of anthropology. Moreover, little work has been undertaken in political science and history to study and understand indigenous (in) security narratives when they speak to themes and belief systems which differ dramatically from Western ways of thinking.Communities on the Uganda/South Sudan border, for example, have historically come to frame much of what human security scholars would understand as 'security concerns' using the language and worldview of 'witchcraft'. Indeed, some view those human rights-based approaches to justice and security promoted by Western donors and their own governments as deeply problematic since they 'protect' witches at the expense of the community. Policy-makers and practitioners face practical challenges in reconciling these worldviews with Western systems of justice and governance. More broadly, though, they and Africanist academics interested in security face a broader challenge - how to study, represent, engage with and respond to these narratives which are deeply meaningful for communities but fundamentally at odds with Western modes of thinking. Furthermore, how can and should researchers broach so sensitive a topic with communities?This project will tackle these difficult questions head-on in a highly innovative collaboration between and across disciplines and continents. At its core will be a partnership between a political scientist and an historian who will work to combine different approaches from their respective disciplines in order to explore witchcraft as a discourse of insecurity in the Uganda/South Sudan border region - and to reflect on the wider methodological and epistemological questions raised above. This will be undertaken in the context of a broader collaboration between a core group of UK and Africa-based academics from history, political science, development studies and anthropology - together with practitioners and policy-makers - who will help design the methodology, advise on the fieldwork and co-produce the outputs through participation in regular workshops in the UK and Africa. In adopting this experimental, inter-disciplinary approach it will be possible to explore and debate the nature of human security - and the place of witchcraft discourses within this - in a dynamic and exciting intellectual space which goes beyond the limits imposed by individual disciplinary boundaries. In doing so, the project will seek to challenge, re-frame and guide key debates within African Studies, security studies, history and anthropology as well as within policy communities.