OGC Newsletter for PhD students and postdocs
 

In certain parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), violence has become the main currency of the politico-economic system. In such zones of instability, the state does not enjoy the legitimate monopoly on the use of violence that is an essential feature of the Weberian state. Furthermore, rather than bringing security, state security agencies are often a major source of insecurity for the local population. At present, one of the main strategies of the international donor community to stabilise these zones is to professionalise state security agencies. However, it is far from clear whether this will translate into improved security for citizens.

One of the reasons for this uncertainty is the lack of knowledge on the impact of state security actors on both short-term and long-term local security dynamics in SSA. What are the effects of the presence of such actors on local power balances and processes of wealth accumulation? What are its consequences for citizens’ physical safety and their livelihoods?

How do such actors influence local political cultures and perceptions of state legitimacy?
These are the questions that I will address in my research, which is a joint project of the Centre for Conflict Studies at Utrecht University and the Faculty of Military Sciences at the Netherlands Defence Academy. The focus of the research is the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where I will do extensive field work over the next two years. As I have worked intermittently in and on the DRC since 2006, mainly for NGOs and as an election observer, I can build on a solid basis of knowledge on this area. Furthermore, I benefit from the experience with field research I obtained during the course of my MA in Conflict Studies and Human Rights (2006), for which I wrote a thesis on the accountability of the Ugandan army for human rights violations.

After studying political sciences and drama, I started working as a director, assistant director, dramaturge and actor, and took part in more than fifteen plays and performances throughout Europe. Since 2007, I have been working in France as an artistic collaborator with the Dance Company Montalvo-Hervieu and as an associated artist in the Centre Dramatique National d’Orléans. I have taught theatrical studies at the University of Versailles-Saint Quentin en Yvelines, the University of Evry and the University of Orléans, and am currently teaching dramaturgy and drama at the Conservatoire d’Orléans. I also write for cinema. My first book, Mémoire et Voix des Morts dans le Théâtre de Jon Fosse, was published by les Presses du Réel in May 2009.

In January 2009, I enrolled as a PhD researcher in OGC, working also at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. In my thesis, I will study texts and plays by European contemporary directors (Romeo Castellucci, Rodrigo García...) and writers (Jon Fosse, Sarah Kane...) to examine how they address history as a simultaneous process, in which past and present are not seen as two separate entities, but are dynamically entangled. By means of a transdisciplinary, alternative historical research, I will interrogate in their theatrical work the possibility for images and writings to act as condensed products of both past and present, and to speak to us from the past about the present.

I started my appointment as a PhD candidate at the Centre for Conflict Studies (CCS) of Utrecht University on 1 April 2009. After graduating from the CCS Master's programme Conflict Studies & Human Rights in September 2008, I worked for six months with IKV Pax Christi before my (planned) return to the CCS. Both for IKV Pax Christi and currently for the CCS I take part in the working group on ‘community security and community-based Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) in fragile states’, part of the Peace Security and Development network (PSD) funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The research I do within this working group I will also use to complete my PhD, focusing on the possibilities to link top-down implemented large scale DDR interventions of the international community with locally initiated bottom-up approaches for security improvement. As community involvement in DDR programmes is a great problem (and with that the sustainability of the security improvements it aims to achieve), it is thought that local security initiatives could very well complement and improve security interventions. For the research I will undertake fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, and Southern Sudan for periods of three to four months each.