'Witchcraft' and conflict: Exploring alternative discourses of insecurity

该项目侧重于探讨三组问题：非洲边境社区如何理解和表达安全威胁，以及“巫术”在这些表达中的特点是什么？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，他们在多大程度上认为这是“巫术”？最后，西方研究人员和西方/非洲政策制定者应该如何参与这些不熟悉的安全话语，以及尝试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光来理解安全威胁，而应该通过个人和社区本身的眼光来理解安全威胁，特别是在受冲突影响的地区。这种“人的安全”的观点使我们能够不仅从-甚至主要从-外国军队或恐怖主义袭击的角度，而且从失业、饥饿、疾病和压迫的角度来理解不安全。事实上，后者通常是大多数人更为突出和实质性的安全关切，然而，我们对非洲社区如何表达和看待自己的安全状况知之甚少，令人惊讶的是，他们的声音很少出现在政策文件和学术研究中，特别是人类学领域以外的文件和研究。此外，在政治学和历史学方面，很少有人研究和理解土著人（不）安全叙事，因为他们的主题和信仰体系与西方思维方式截然不同。在历史上，人类安全问题学者会使用“巫术”的语言和世界观来理解“安全关切”。事实上，一些人认为西方捐助者及其本国政府倡导的基于人权的司法和安全方法存在严重问题，因为它们以社区为代价“保护”女巫。政策制定者和实践者在协调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，代表，参与和回应这些对社区有深刻意义但与西方思维模式根本不一致的叙述。此外，研究人员如何能够和应该与社区讨论如此敏感的话题？该项目将以跨学科和跨大陆的高度创新合作方式正面解决这些难题。其核心将是一名政治学家和一名历史学家之间的伙伴关系，他们将努力联合收割机结合各自学科的不同方法，以探讨巫术作为乌干达/南苏丹边境地区不安全的话语，并反思上文提出的更广泛的方法论和认识论问题。这项工作将在一个由来自历史、政治学、发展研究和人类学的英国和非洲学者组成的核心小组与从业人员和政策制定者进行更广泛合作的背景下进行，他们将帮助设计方法，就实地工作提出建议，并通过参加在英国和非洲举行的定期讲习班共同制作产出。通过采用这种实验性的跨学科方法，将有可能在一个动态和令人兴奋的知识空间中探索和辩论人类安全的性质-以及巫术话语在其中的地位，这超出了个别学科界限所施加的限制。在此过程中，该项目将寻求挑战，重新构建和指导非洲研究，安全研究，历史和人类学以及政策社区内的关键辩论。

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.