Abstract
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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Conflict, Security and Development |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Pages (from-to) | 539-560 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| ISSN | 1467-8802 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This article is an output of the Conflict Research Programme, led by the London School of Economics and Political Science, and funded by UK aid from the UK government (GB-1-204428); the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies. Moreover, Hoffmann gratefully acknowledges research funding from the European Research Council ((ERC Grant: State Formation Through the Local Production of Property and Citizenship (Ares (2015)2785650–ERC-2014-AdG–662770-Local State)). The authors would like to thank Herbert Weiss, Judith Verweijen, Alex de Waal, Mary Kaldor, Leonie Newhouse, Christian Lund, Mattias Borg Rasmussen, Rune Bennike, Penelope Anthias, Cherry Leonardi, Gavin Bridge, Ben Campbell, Peitra Perez, José Ndala, Josaphat Musamba and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which helped to improve the article.
Funding Information:
This article is an output of the Conflict Research Programme, led by the London School of Economics and Political Science, and funded by UK aid from the UK government (GB-1-204428); the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies. Moreover, Hoffmann gratefully acknowledges research funding from the European Research Council ((ERC Grant: State Formation Through the Local Production of Property and Citizenship (Ares (2015)2785650 – ERC-2014-AdG – 662770-Local State)). The authors would like to thank Herbert Weiss, Judith Verweijen, Alex de Waal, Mary Kaldor, Leonie Newhouse, Christian Lund, Mattias Borg Rasmussen, Rune Bennike, Penelope Anthias, Cherry Leonardi, Gavin Bridge, Ben Campbell, Peitra Perez, José Ndala, Josaphat Musamba and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which helped to improve the article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 King’s College London.
Keywords
- Ethnic capital
- habitus
- identity
- resources
- social fields
- violent conflict