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Contents:
1. Welcome to the fifth MICROCON Newsletter
2. Researching conflict-related migration dynamics in the Somali regions: fieldwork report
3. New fieldwork
Burundi
Liberia
Colombia
Namibia
Lesotho
4. Publications
Policy Working Papers
Research Working Papers
5. Training
INCO Fund bursary available at l'Université de Cergy Pontoise
6. Other news
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Dear Colleague,
This is the fifth MICROCON Newsletter. It contains news on our new publications; news from our fieldwork teams; and news of upcoming fieldwork studies.
If you haven't done so already, you can also sign up for alerts of publications in your area of interest as soon as they are published.
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2. Researching conflict-related migration dynamics in the Somali regions: fieldwork report
By Anna Lindley, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford
In June-August 2008, fieldwork was carried out for Project 12, a study of migration dynamics in the Somali regions. The most recent episode in the protracted Somali civil war - the ousting of the Islamic Courts from the south-central Somali region at the end of 2006 by the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), and the subsequent violence - has been accompanied by migration on a massive scale. NGOs estimate that more than 870,000 people have fled Mogadishu (about two thirds of the city’s population).
Our research uses a micro-level perspective to explore two themes: the causes and processes of migration from Mogadishu, and the reception and consequences of migration in the Somali regions. The fieldwork focused on a particular fragment of the wider picture, through qualitative research with migrants from Mogadishu and elsewhere, in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Working with the able support of six research assistants (including locals and migrants, who participated in a three-day training, regular debriefings and an analysis workshop) we carried out 39 individual interviews with migrants, and 12 focus groups with migrants and local people. All the data collected was translated, transcribed and coded, and is currently being analysed using NVivo qualitative data analysis software.
The research has attempted to go beyond macro-political explanations for conflict-related migration, taking a micro-level perspective to explore in detail the causes and process of migration, focusing on how particular interactions between people, their resources, and their structural contexts produce migration. Many of the people we spoke with had lived their entire lives in Mogadishu, negotiating one of the most insecure urban environments in the world, in ways that demonstrated considerable resilience. We explored how the conflict and other factors impinged on everyday life, and how this has changed for different people over time. Participants described two key shifts in recent years – the rise of the Islamic Courts (which for a short time brought the capital under a coalition administration and dramatically improved security), and the arrival of the TFG (which was followed by devastating violence between a fragmented, insistent insurgency and counter-insurgent response with little regard for civilian welfare). Emphasising the role of the global war on terror as a key contributor to the changing landscapes of violence in the last three years, participants reported how the destruction of human, physical and financial resources, and changing configurations of socio-political protection prompted them to leave Mogadishu.
Meanwhile, complex challenges surround the reception and consequences of migration in host communities which are themselves emerging from recent histories of violence. Thanks to its relative stability, Somaliland has become one of the destinations for migrants from turbulent parts of Somalia and Ethiopia. Having declared independence from Somalia, it has built a state (although internationally unrecognised) and entered a phase of post-conflict development. Economically, the status of travellers from south-central Somalia varies considerably, ranging from the wealthy Mogadishu business class to destitute people begging for food. Politically, Southern Somalis find themselves in a legal limbo – the government’s position is that they are foreign refugees, but the international organisations’ position is that they are internally displaced people. Socially, given the constrained circumstances in which many Somalilanders live, there has been considerable tolerance and acceptance of newcomers. But this cannot be taken for granted, as demonstrated by tensions over work and wages, access to shelter and resources in overcrowded slum areas, and anti-immigrant reactions to the recent suicide bombings in Hargeisa.
The research findings will be published in the next few months. The researcher carried out the fieldwork as a visiting scholar at the Academy for Peace and Development, and greatly benefited from the guidance of colleagues there. They are very happy to have secured a MICROCON-funded visiting fellowship for their lead researcher, Mohamed Hassan Ibrahim, to come to the Refugee Studies Centre in 2009.
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3. New fieldwork
Burundi
Eleonora Nillesen and Philip Verwimp will soon be leaving to Burundi to collect data for a project on trust and collective action in post-war Burundi. This project proposes a framework to systematically study the long-term effects of civil warfare on trust and collective action in the context of cooperation (public goods provision) in post-conflict Burundi, using economic games.
Liberia
Morten Bøås and Anne Hatløy are going to Liberia to conduct a study among former combatants of 18 years and above, of both sexes for project 3: The users of force. The main objective of this project is to generate new knowledge about the origins and foundations of armed militias through an analysis of the background of militia members, and the nature and form of their participation in violent conflict. The project will draw upon data collected through a method called ‘Respondent- Driven-Sampling’.
Colombia
Ingunn Bjørkhaug is going to Colombia to collect data for project 4: Recruiting child soldiers: vulnerability, agency and reintegration. The main objective of this project is to identify patterns, processes, and mechanisms of recruitment of children and adolescents to armed groups in Colombia. The project will use in-depth interviews and focus groups to complement quantitative data collected in a survey in 2004.
Namibia
Diego Augusto Menestrey Schwieger is travelling to Namibia to work on project 26: Water management and violent conflicts. This fieldwork aims at finding out whether the introduction of new water regulation in Namibia breaks the old regulative structures and thus leads to disputes or conflicts or whether the new mode of regulation enhances the regulative regime in order to cope with and manage upcoming conflictive situations in a positive, improved way. Methods used will include an ethnographic census, a Wealth/Social Status Ranking and network analysis.
Lesotho
Sophia Bildhäuser is going to Lesotho, also to work on project 26: Water management and violent conflicts. This research aims at exploring the relevant factors on a local level which contribute to a violent or a non-violent (re)action to a scarcity of water and land. The research encompass qualitative methods such as semi-structured interviews, oral history/storytelling, stakeholder analysis, conflict mapping, participatory observation, contextual and historical analysis and structured focussed comparison.
4. Publications
Policy Working Papers
PWP3: Civil Society and Conflict Transformation in Abkhazia, Israel/Palestine, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria and Western Sahara - Nona Mikhelidze and Nicoletta Pirozzi
This paper describes and analyses the role of civil society in five conflict cases – Abkhazia, Nagorno- Karabakh, Transnistria, Western Sahara and Israel/ Palestine. It evaluates the relative effectiveness of civil society organisations (CSOs) and assesses the potential and limits of CSO involvement in conflicts. In particular it concentrates on civil society activities in the fields of peace training and education, including formal and non-formal education, as well as research and media work. The research also identifies the obstacles that local third sector is faced with, examining experiences and lessons learned. The study then presents critical assessments of local CSO contributions to conflict transformation and concludes with a set of suggestions for local and mid-level civil society actors involved in these five conflict cases and beyond. This paper is an overview study, to provide ideas and documentation to the more detailed empirical research carried out in the context of the MICROCON Work Package ‘Conflict in the European Neighbourhood’.
Research Working Papers
RWP9: Consumption Growth, Household Splits and Civil War - Philip Verwimp and Tom Bundervoet
A growing volume of literature is examining the impact of household specific and village level shocks on household consumption. This paper studies the evolution of individual and household welfare in Burundi between 1998 and 2007. The authors focus on the role of the civil war as a covariate village level shock and of various types of violent and non-violent individual shocks in explaining household consumption paths. The authors find that poverty is persistent while prosperity is not, in particular in war-affected areas. They find that 25 war-related deaths or wounded at the village level reduce consumption growth by 13%. Additional findings include: violence afflicted on household members decreases growth whereas membership of rebel groups increases it; temporary famine-induced migration and illness decrease growth while good harvests, more split-offs and higher initial levels of education increase it; good harvests are found to have persistent positive effects on growth; and at the level of community infrastructure, good access to a paved road increased consumption growth.
5. Training
INCO Fund bursary available at l'Université de Cergy Pontoise
A small bursary is available at Théorie économique, modélisation et applications (THEMA), l’Université de Cergy-Pontoise for a researcher from a developing country. This is a MICROCON INCO Fund grant to work on a project on the Microeconomics of Violence and Poverty.
More details and instructions on how to apply are available on the MICROCON website.
6. Other news:
Tilman Brück's new book on post-conflict reconstruction launched at DIW Berlin
Philip Verwimp lectures at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Philip Verwimp publishes opinion piece on civil war in Africa in L'Echo
Yvan Guichaoua interviewed by Le Journal du Dimanche on the taking of hostages in the Gulf of Guinea
MICROCON members present papers at conference at CEAN, Bordeaux
Nathalie Tocci publishes paper on the transformation of Turkey's Kurdish question