Violent conflict and ethnicity in the Congo: beyond materialism, primordialism and symbolism
Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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Violent conflict and ethnicity in the Congo : beyond materialism, primordialism and symbolism. / Hoffmann, Kasper; Vlassenroot, Koen ; Carayannis, Tatiana ; Muzalia, Godefroid .
I: Conflict, Security and Development, Bind 20, Nr. 5, 2020, s. 539-560 .Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Violent conflict and ethnicity in the Congo
T2 - beyond materialism, primordialism and symbolism
AU - Hoffmann, Kasper
AU - Vlassenroot, Koen
AU - Carayannis, Tatiana
AU - Muzalia, Godefroid
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - In this paper, we investigate the nexus between ethnicity and violent conflict in the Congo. We make three interlocking arguments. First, we argue that ethnicity is a defining political resource in the Congo’s politics and violent conflicts, which we call ‘ethnic capital’. Second, we argue that the high political value of this ethnic capital is sustained by engrained discourses and practices of ethnicity. These discourses and practices permeate the Congo’s political order, shape people’s understanding of politics, conflict and political identities, and have contributed to the formation of an unstable, centrifugal, and fragmentary political order. Third, we argue that conceptualising ethnicity as capital dismantles the artificial dualism between the symbolic realm of identities and the material realm of the economy and makes it possible to move beyond primordialist, instrumentalist and purely symbolic understandings of the nexus between conflict and ethnicity. Ultimately, what is at stake in this competition is the distribution of symbolic and material resources.
AB - In this paper, we investigate the nexus between ethnicity and violent conflict in the Congo. We make three interlocking arguments. First, we argue that ethnicity is a defining political resource in the Congo’s politics and violent conflicts, which we call ‘ethnic capital’. Second, we argue that the high political value of this ethnic capital is sustained by engrained discourses and practices of ethnicity. These discourses and practices permeate the Congo’s political order, shape people’s understanding of politics, conflict and political identities, and have contributed to the formation of an unstable, centrifugal, and fragmentary political order. Third, we argue that conceptualising ethnicity as capital dismantles the artificial dualism between the symbolic realm of identities and the material realm of the economy and makes it possible to move beyond primordialist, instrumentalist and purely symbolic understandings of the nexus between conflict and ethnicity. Ultimately, what is at stake in this competition is the distribution of symbolic and material resources.
U2 - 10.1080/14678802.2020.1840789
DO - 10.1080/14678802.2020.1840789
M3 - Journal article
VL - 20
SP - 539
EP - 560
JO - Conflict, Security and Development
JF - Conflict, Security and Development
SN - 1467-8802
IS - 5
ER -
ID: 255053911