Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Anthropological Investigation of the Legal Doctrine of Self-Determination in the Context of Decolonization

纽约市立大学研究生中心博士生马克·德鲁里将在加里·怀尔德博士的指导下，研究在非殖民化背景下应用--或试图应用--自决法律原则的过程和效果。该提案审查了1990年代期间联合国领导的在西撒哈拉非自治领土举行自决全民投票的努力。通过重点研究联合国特派团身份查验委员会的组成和运作，这项研究将从联合国规划者和参与登记过程的人的角度考虑自决的重要性，包括：负责授权或拒绝准选民、政府指定的观察员和准选民本身口头证词的“身份查验”酋长。德鲁里的研究将有助于理解国际法律概念如何依赖于人类学形式的知识才能在特定背景下应用。此外，他对这种实行自决的特别尝试失败的关注将调查国际法在解决或维持政治冲突方面的作用。在大多数研究将国际法的限制作为主权和管辖权问题的情况下，这项研究将侧重于法律概念本身的可能性和限制。德鲁里将进行为期12个月的实地考察，在纽约、西撒哈拉和波利萨里奥在阿尔及利亚领土上经营的难民营之间奔波。他将通过以下方式收集数据：(1)与参与西撒特派团、联合国西撒哈拉特派团及其身份查验委员会的前人员进行访谈；(2)对有关全民投票规划进程的联合国文件进行档案研究；(3)对身份查验委员会进程各级参与者进行的半结构化访谈和口述历史记录；(4)通过在私人和公共环境中对参与者的观察进行人种学观察。这项研究的结果将与对非殖民化动态感兴趣的政治学家和历史学家以及政治冲突和冲突解决机制的从业人员和学者有关。这项研究有助于人类学研究生的培养。

City University of New York-Graduate Center doctoral student Mark Drury, with the guidance of Dr. Gary Wilder, will research the process and effects of applying - or attempting to apply - the legal doctrine of self-determination in the context of decolonization. This proposal examines UN-led efforts during the 1990s to hold a referendum on self-determination in the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Western Sahara. By focusing on the formation and workings of the UN mission's Identification Commission, this research will consider the significance of self-determination from the perspective of both UN planners and those who participated in the registration process, including: "identification" sheikhs tasked with authorizing or denying the oral testimony of prospective voters, government-appointed observers, and prospective voters themselves. Drury's research will contribute to understandings of how international legal concepts rely upon anthropological forms of knowledge in order to be applied in particular contexts. In addition, his attention to the failure of this particular attempt to apply self-determination will investigate the role of international law in resolving or sustaining political conflict. Where most studies focus on the limitations to international law as a problem of sovereignty and jurisdiction, this research will focus on the possibilities of, and limitations to, the legal concepts themselves.Drury will undertake 12 months of fieldwork, splitting time between New York, Laâyoune, Western Sahara, and a Polisario-run refugee camp in Algerian territory. He will collect data through (1) interviews with former personnel involved in MINURSO, UN's mission to Western Sahara, and its Identification Commission; (2) archival research of UN documents regarding the referendum planning process; (3) semi-structured interviews and oral histories from participants from all levels of the Identification Commission process; and (4) ethnographic observations from participant observation in private and public settings.The findings of this research will be relevant to political scientists and historians interested in the dynamics of decolonization, as well as to practitioners and scholars of political conflict and conflict resolution mechanisms. The research contributes to the training of a graduate student in anthropology.