Civil war and the non-linearity of time: approaching a Mozambican politics of irreconciliation

At least 1 million people died during the Mozambican civil war (1976/7-92). Unfolding after gaining independence from Portugal (1975) and alongside experiments with Afro-socialism in the 1980s, the war, despite its brutality, has not been subjected to global templates of reconciliation processes. Thus it comprises a unique case to probe what irreconciliation might mean – both as a political horizon and as an analytical concept. This text juxtaposes ethnographic material from rural, central Mozambique from the late 1990s and early 2000s emphasizing reconciliation with material from the same spaces from the 2010s onwards, where I identify what I term a ‘politics of irreconciliation’. I will make three arguments. First, informed by Hannah Arendt, I approach irreconciliation as fundamentally about the rejection of a world of violence in search of a world shared in common. Second, drawing on recent anthropological theorizing about temporal regimes and chronopolitics, I argue for the salience of a non-linear understanding of the politics of irreconciliation to grapple with the fact that civil war violence is understood as dangerously uncontained rather than nominally past. Third, within the context of Mozambique, forgiveness and its other, irreconciliation, are not only intimately tied to the temporally past or present; they are also, as I show, produced by a tangible and intense absence of a productive future.     

Dynamics of Socioeconomic Risk Factors for Neglected Tropical Diseases and Malaria in an Armed Conflict

Background

Armed conflict and war are among the leading causes of disability and premature death, and there is a growing share of civilians killed or injured during armed conflicts. A major part of the civilian suffering stems from indirect effects or collateral impact such as changing risk profiles for infectious diseases. We focused on rural communities in the western part of Côte d''Ivoire, where fighting took place during the Ivorian civil war in 2002/2003, and assessed the dynamics of socioeconomic risk factors for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and malaria.

Methodology

The same standardized and pre-tested questionnaires were administered to the heads of 182 randomly selected households in 25 villages in the region of Man, western Côte d''Ivoire, shortly before and after the 2002/2003 armed conflict.

Principal Findings

There was no difference in crowding as measured by the number of individuals per sleeping room, but the inadequate sanitation infrastructure prior to the conflict further worsened, and the availability and use of protective measures against mosquito bites and accessibility to health care infrastructure deteriorated. Although the direct causal chain between these findings and the conflict are incomplete, partially explained by the very nature of working in conflict areas, the timing and procedures of the survey, other sources and anecdotal evidence point toward a relationship between an increased risk of suffering from NTDs and malaria and armed conflict.

Conclusion

New research is needed to deepen our understanding of the often diffuse and neglected indirect effects of armed conflict and war, which may be worse than the more obvious, direct effects.     

The ‘SONY NIGHTCLUB’: Rural Brothels,Gender Violence,and Development in Coastal Ecuador

ABSTRACT

In the Ecuadorian public imaginary, Manabí province is constructed as a lawless frontier. Manaba men are characterized for their aggressive masculinity, robust and primitive sexuality, and their proclivity towards resolving conflict with violence. This paper examines community debates about brothels and healthy sexuality in a rural coastal region where the state is expanding its reach into domestic life via the regulation of sexual intimacies and family violence. Local debates about healthy sexuality embody the historically contested and currently changing nature of state–community relationships in this previously marginalized region. While certain community factions invoke modernizing discourses of women's rights in their struggle to shut down brothels and mitigate family violence, others argue for unregulated sexuality as a way to diminish violence. Drawing from over 10 years of ethnographic research on gender, violence, and human rights in Ecuador, this paper reveals the co-construction of rural intimacies and the boundaries of state intervention.     

Mine warfare at sea—some legal aspects of the future

Abstract

The paper addresses some of the problems that new weapon technology at sea are posing to traditional legal concepts, and to illustrate these, the sea mine has been taken as the topical weapon. One of the difficulties is that since the Hague Peace Conference of 1907, through the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Paris Treaty of 1928 renouncing war as an instrument of national policy up to the situation after the Charter of the United Nations, it is improbable that any nation will ever again declare war. In the absence of declared war, it is probably most helpful to categorize the threat or use of armed force as either a delict, a sanction, or self‐defense. The use of mines in any legal context gives rise to two fundamental questions:

a. Is the mine a lawful weapon?

b. If it is a lawful weapon what are the legal restraints on its use, if any?

The paper asserts, inter alia, that the Hague Convention No VIII Relative to the Laying of Automatic Submarine Contact Mines does not prohibit the mine as then known, and that the legal status of mines as a weapon of war has not fundamentally changed since 1907.     

Crippling Violence: Conflict and Incident Polio in Afghanistan

Background

Designing effective public health campaigns in areas of armed conflict requires a nuanced understanding of how violence impacts the epidemiology of the disease in question.

Methods

We examine the geographical relationship between violence (represented by the location of detonated Improvised Explosive Devices) and polio incidence by generating maps of IEDs and polio incidence during 2010, and by comparing the mean number of IED detonations in polio high-risk districts with non polio high-risk districts during 2004–2009.

Results

We demonstrate a geographic relationship between IED violence and incident polio. Districts that have high-risk for polio have highly statistically significantly greater mean numbers of IEDs than non polio high-risk districts (p-values 0.0010–0.0404).

Conclusions

The geographic relationship between armed conflict and polio incidence provides valuable insights as to how to plan a vaccination campaign in violent contexts, and allows us to anticipate incident polio in the regions of armed conflict. Such information permits vaccination planners to engage interested armed combatants to co-develop strategies to mitigate the effects of violence on polio.     

Associations between Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence,Armed Conflict,and Probable PTSD among Women in Rural C?te d’Ivoire

Background

Objectives were to assess associations between intimate partner violence (IPV), violence during armed conflict (i.e. crisis violence), and probable post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Methods

Using a sample of 950 women in rural Côte d’Ivoire, logistic generalized estimating equations assessed associations between IPV and crisis violence exposures with past-week probable PTSD.

Results

Over one in 5 (23.4%) women reported past-year IPV, and over one in 4 women (26.5%) reported experiencing IPV prior to the past year (i.e. remote IPV). Crisis violence was experienced by 72.6% of women. In adjusted models including demographics, crisis violence (overall and specific forms), and IPV (remote and past-year), women who reported past-year IPV had 3.1 times the odds of reporting probable past-week PTSD (95%CI: 1.8–5.3) and those who reported remote IPV had 1.6 times the odds (95%CI: 0.9–2.7). Violent exposures during the crisis were not significantly associated with probable PTSD (any crisis violence: aOR: 1.04 (0.7–1.5); displacement: aOR: 0.9 (95%CI: 0.5–1.7); family victimization during crisis: aOR: 1.1 (95%CI: 0.8–1.7); personal victimization during crisis: aOR: 1.7 (95%CI: 0.7–3.7)).

Conclusion

Past-year IPV was more strongly associated with past-week probable PTSD than remote IPV and violence directly related to the crisis. IPV must be considered within humanitarian mental health and psychosocial programming.     

Physical strength predicts political violence

Research has revealed an association between individual physical strength and attitudinal support for modern war. Physical strength of one individual has an infinitesimal effect on the outcomes of state-level aggression involving large-scale armies and complex military technology. The fact that stronger individuals do support such aggression hints at an evolved psychology specialized for small-scale coalitional aggression, where strength of coalition members non-negligibly contribute to the net coalition strength. Here, I examined whether strength also accounts for participation in modern political aggression, as contrasted to mere support. Given that contemporary political aggression primarily occurs within—not between—states, I focused on intra-state forms of political violence, specifically violent antigovernment protests. To enhance external and ecological validity, I relied on large probability samples from both non-WEIRD and WEIRD countries experiencing political violence (N = 6283; interviewees were quota-sampled from YouGov online panels to generate representative samples of online adult populations). Multinational analyses revealed that self-perceived strength significantly predicts intentions to participate in political violence and self-reported participation, and that this association is stronger among young interviewees, but not among men (compared to women). The predictive power of strength was modest but comparable to that of gender, an established predictor of aggression. I discuss why the fact that strength—a physiological variable—relates to political violence—a complex modern phenomenon—is remarkable. Subsequently, I suggest a new research agenda that draws on insights from evolutionary research to study modern political violence.     

Understanding the Interaction of Rural People with Ecosystems: A Case Study in a Tropical Dry Forest of Mexico

The aim of this study was to help understand the interaction of rural people with tropical dry forests. It was based on social research conducted in the Chamela-Cuixmala region, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The analytical tools used in the study included stakeholder identification, environmental history and social perceptions. The two main social groups in the study were ejidatarios, who own most of the territory, and avecindados, who possess no land but have high population numbers. Through an interpretative methodological approach we documented the vision and meaning that rural people give to their natural and social worlds. The agricultural development model promoted by the Mexican government for decades was identified as the main driver of ecosystem transformation. Rural people, who arrived recently in the region, were proud of the pasture-lands that were transformed from tropical forests. Conservation policies implemented during the last two decades were viewed as impositions although people recognized the value of services provided by ecosystems. This case study has helped to unravel the main dimensions of the human system and how it relates to structures of signification. The social panorama unveiled can be used as an initial basis to promote further research on the social-ecological system of the Chamela-Cuixmala region and to develop future participatory management schemes.     

Conflicto armado,contaminación y riesgos en salud: una evaluación de riesgo de tres fuentes de exposición ambiental asociadas con el conflicto en Colombia

Introduction:

Armed conflicts affect territories rich in resources and biodiversity. As a result of the environmental damage caused by violent actions, the health of populations can be affected.

Objectives:

To assess the risks to human health due to environmental degradation associated with three violent actions in the context of the Colombian armed conflict: Pipeline bombing, informal mining with mercury, and spraying of illicit crops with glyphosate.

Materials and methods:

We conducted a quantitative evaluation of the risks to individual health associated with armed conflict activities using methodologies focused on the routes of pollutants dispersion, their concentrations in the environment, the exposure of the individuals, and the risks of carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects.

Results:

The risk assessment of the armed conflict-related actions under study evidenced intolerable carcinogenic risk and unacceptable non-carcinogenic risk due to the consumption of water and fish contaminated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), mercury, and glyphosate.

Conclusions:

The study reiterates the inextricable connections existing among the environment, society, and health, as well as the implications of environmental violence for the public health of vulnerable population groups and, in general, for the well-being of all living beings affected by the armed conflict.     

The paradox of power-sharing: stability and fragility in postwar Lebanon

ABSTRACT

This article examines the consequences of civil war and power-sharing settlements for the development of sectarian networks of mobilization. While power-sharing presents a viable mechanism for ending civil war, it allows the participating militias-turned-parties access to state resources and leaves their population networks and organizations intact. This continuity reduces the militias-turned-parties’ start-up costs for violent mobilization in the future, enabling them to mobilize more effectively than new parties with no combat experience. I exploit rich variation in the wartime legacies and settlement status of the major postwar parties in Lebanon to explain whether and how parties mobilized during the clashes of May 2008, the most serious internal violence to plague Lebanon since the end of its civil war in 1990.     

Localisation of several chromosome I genes of Aspergillus nidulans: implications for mitotic recombination

Summary Another laboratory previously reported that the vast majority of mitotic recombinants in chromosome I disomics of Aspergillus nidulans arise from double exchange events involving the centromeric region and a far distal, possibly telomeric, region. This conclusion was based on the assumption that the camC gene is located in a position far distal to the centromere on the left arm of chromosome. I. As a left arm location for camC distal to the centromere was possibly in conflict with mapping data obtained in the context of an unrelated project, camC was partially mapped along with three other previously unlocated chromosome I genes, davA, ornD and uapA. The data presented here indicate that camC is located in a position far distal to the centromere but on the right arm of chromosome I, a conclusion also supported by the previous data. The positioning of uapA and camC in far distal locations on the right arm of chromosome I indicates the existence of a vast, otherwise nearly unmapped region on this chromosome arm.     

Does infectious disease cause global variation in the frequency of intrastate armed conflict and civil war?

Geographic and cross‐national variation in the frequency of intrastate armed conflict and civil war is a subject of great interest. Previous theory on this variation has focused on the influence on human behaviour of climate, resource competition, national wealth, and cultural characteristics. We present the parasite‐stress model of intrastate conflict, which unites previous work on the correlates of intrastate conflict by linking frequency of the outbreak of such conflict, including civil war, to the intensity of infectious disease across countries of the world. High intensity of infectious disease leads to the emergence of xenophobic and ethnocentric cultural norms. These cultures suffer greater poverty and deprivation due to the morbidity and mortality caused by disease, and as a result of decreased investment in public health and welfare. Resource competition among xenophobic and ethnocentric groups within a nation leads to increased frequency of civil war. We present support for the parasite‐stress model with regression analyses. We find support for a direct effect of infectious disease on intrastate armed conflict, and support for an indirect effect of infectious disease on the incidence of civil war via its negative effect on national wealth. We consider the entanglements of feedback of conflict into further reduced wealth and increased incidence of disease, and discuss implications for international warfare and global patterns of wealth and imperialism.     

Analysis of México’s Narco-War Network (2007–2011)

Since December 2006, more than a thousand cities in México have suffered the effects of the war between several drug cartels, amongst themselves, as well as with Mexican armed forces. Sources are not in agreement about the number of casualties of this war, with reports varying from 30 to 100 thousand dead; the economic and social ravages are impossible to quantify. In this work we analyze the official report of casualties in terms of the location and the date of occurrence of the homicides. We show how the violence, as reflected by the number of casualties, has increased over time and spread across the country. Next, based on the correlations between cities in the changes of the monthly number of casualties attributed to organized crime, we construct a narco-war network where nodes are the affected cities and links represent correlations between them. We find that close geographical distance between violent cities does not imply a strong correlation amongst them. We observe that the dynamics of the conflict has evolved in short-term periods where a small core of violent cities determines the main theatre of the war at each stage. This kind of analysis may also help to describe the emergence and propagation of gang-related violence waves.     

On the double social life of failure

What might it mean to follow failure ‘out into the world’ (Alexander, introduction to this volume) in a way that is attentive both to its contingent and diffuse effects, and to the work involved in making it socially legible? This essay follows a moment of social breakdown, its reverberations in social life, and the forms of diagnosis it elicited as a way of exploring the double social life of failure. Focusing on the aftermath of Kyrgyzstan's 2010 ‘Osh events’ (Oshskie sobytiia) as they took hold in a multi-tenant and ethnically mixed dormitory apartment for migrant workers in Moscow, I follow failure forwards, exploring how a period of intercommunal violence reverberated in a context of protracted work migration, legal non-recognition, and the digital circulation of blame. I also track it backwards, attending to my interlocutors’ practices of diagnosis and excavation. Among Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Moscow, the Osh events figured as indexical of different kinds of failure – whether of protection, recognition, or proper state care. I take vernacular diagnoses of bardak – normative breakdown – as an ethnographic entry point for thinking about the spatial and temporal afterlives of violence, their articulation in an age of digital mediation, and the ethics of naming and diagnosing failure.     

Role of vaccinations as risk factors for ill health in veterans of the Gulf war: cross sectional study

ObjectivesTo explore the relation between ill health after the Gulf war and vaccines received before or during the conflict. To test the hypothesis that such ill health is limited to military personnel who received multiple vaccines during deployment and that pesticide use modifies any effect.DesignCross sectional study of Gulf war veterans followed for six to eight years after deployment.Setting UK armed forces.ParticipantsMilitary personnel who served in the Gulf and who still had their vaccine records.Results The response rate for the original survey was 70.4% (n=3284). Of these, 28% (923) had vaccine records. Receipt of multiple vaccines before deployment was associated with only one of the six health outcomes (post-traumatic stress reaction). By contrast five of the six outcomes (all but post-traumatic stress reaction) were associated with multiple vaccines received during deployment. The strongest association was for the multisymptom illness (odds ratio 5.0; 95% confidence interval 2.5 to 9.8).ConclusionAmong veterans of the Gulf war there is a specific relation between multiple vaccinations given during deployment and later ill health. Multiple vaccinations in themselves do not seem to be harmful but combined with the “stress” of deployment they may be associated with adverse health outcomes. These results imply that every effort should be made to maintain routine vaccines during peacetime.     

Remembering Collective Violence: Broadening the Notion of Traumatic Memory in Post-Conflict Rehabilitation

In the aftermath of war and armed conflict, individuals and communities face the challenge of dealing with recollections of violence and atrocity. This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of processes of remembering and forgetting histories of violence in post-conflict communities and to reflect on related implications for trauma rehabilitation in post-conflict settings. Starting from the observation that memory operates at the core of PTSD symptomatology, we more closely explore how this notion of traumatic memory is conceptualized within PTSD-centered research and interventions. Subsequently, we aim to broaden this understanding of traumatic memory and post-trauma care by connecting to findings from social memory studies and transcultural trauma research. Drawing on an analysis of scholarly literature, this analysis develops into a perspective on memory that moves beyond a symptomatic framing toward an understanding of memory that emphasizes its relational, political, moral, and cultural nature. Post-conflict memory is presented as inextricably embedded in communal relations, involving ongoing trade-offs between individual and collective responses to trauma and a complex negotiation of speech and silence. In a concluding discussion, we develop implications of this broadened understanding for post-conflict trauma-focused rehabilitation.     

Structure and regulation of human troponin genes

The recent completion of a first draft of the human genome has allowed in silico genome browsing to become routine. Such computer-based research is now a useful adjunct to experiments based at the bench, and is accelerating gene discovery and the analysis and understanding of genes in their genomic contexts. This review summarises recent findings on genes encoding proteins of the troponin complex. We describe the organization of the three pairs of genes which encode isoforms of troponins I and T, and discuss how this relates to their evolution and regulation. Detailed analysis of the chromosomal context of the cardiac troponin I and slow skeletal troponin T genes reveals a region of densely packed differentially expressed genes, including new genes identified by automatic genome annotation. This information is discussed within the context of detailed analysis of the best-studied gene in this region, cardiac troponin I. In this way, we illustrate the uses to which a combination of conventional bench experiments and in silico analyses may be put in understanding the relationship between structure and function within the genome. (Mol Cell Biochem 263: 81–90, 2004)     

Weiqu,structural injustice and caring for sick older people in rural Chinese families: An empirical ethical study

This paper examines caregiving for sick older family members in the context of socio-economic transformations in rural China, combining empirical investigation with normative inquiry. The empirical part of this paper is based on a case study, taken from fieldwork in a rural Chinese hospital, of a son who took care of his hospitalized mother. This empirical study highlighted family members’ weiqu (sense of unfairness)—a mental status from experiencing mistreatment and oppression in family care, yet with constrained power to explicitly protest or make care-related choices. Underpinning people’s weiqu and constrained choice, as informed by the conception of structural injustice, is the impact of unjust social structures, organized by unfavourable norms, discriminatory social policies and institutions targeting rural populations. By restraining individual choices and capacities in supporting health care for aging populations, these unjust structures create additional difficulties for and discriminations against rural families and their older members. Some policy recommendations are proposed to mitigate structural injustice so as to empower families and promote care for older people in rural settings.     

Réflexions sur les débuts de la guerre au Néolithique en Europe occidentale

The emergence of war during prehistoric times is a recurrent subject that has often been treated in archaeological literature. The present publication, in the light of a synthetic analysis of traces of violent death observed in Neolithic graves in France and completed by new data information obtained from excavations in Germany, in Austria and in Iberian Peninsula, raises the issue of emergence of a real climate of collective violence in the first farmer communities in Europe. From that moment on, violence ascent during Neolithic times can be reported to several factors: factual causes in relation to disputes over territorial boundaries, economic motivations to permit forcible seizure of wealth or valuable objects by incursions, raids and razzias, and to finish social reasons because victorious conflicts are a demonstration of strength of one community against another and they confirm the prestige of the group or the chief. However, the recognized or established examples of violent death and slaughter remain very few in the end within the first farmer and peasant communities in western Europe. They don’t justify the hypothesis of armed disputes on a large scale. We cannot speak of “war”. Actually, this collective violence is the early beginning of real war in this definition, that is to say an aggressiveness organized, managed, socialized and used for the group at the expense of a neighbouring group, referred to other implications. War is established notably by specific armaments adapted to hand-to-hand fight and to collective fight. Moreover, a society dedicated or consecrated to war includes a military caste or a military aristocracy. Once again, the appearance of a warlike elite is not discernable before the beginnings of the Bronze Age.