The discourse on resilience, especially in post-colonial contexts, presents a series of conflicts and contradictions in its collection and use. A critical examination of engagement with “local” security personnel in South Sudan highlights two problematic aspects inherent in current practices. First, the role of the researcher or “local” expert, apparently included in providing a culturally specific context, often reduces their contributions to partial “color marking”, placing them in secondary roles in what is designed as a large-scale work, carried out without rigor. programs within international and international and non-governmental organizations. Second, the empirical concept of “use” itself provides a paradoxical example: a set of external interventions designed to cultivate what is perceived as intrinsic quality and self-sustainability. This counterintuitive logic emphasizes the tension between sustainability as an ideal and its practicality within international development frameworks, particularly in post-liberal settings.
An opportunity to exchange with these South Sudanese experts on sustainability – not those who pay big money to develop resilience programs like UNDP, USAID and the World Bank, but those who often provide short-term talks to implement resilience in a crisis. Methodology – delivered in a series of workshops as part of the AHRC-funded ‘de-escalation’ project, led by Coventry University’s Center for Peace and Security in partnership with the University. at Westminster. In his second workshop in the series, in Juba, South Sudan, David Chandler analyzed South Sudan as a country under “rigid governance”. According to him, the governance of stability can be seen as a state of partial autonomy, a form of colonial care imposed by international agencies and their abundance of the system of stability.
The concept of resilience, which is often framed as an inherent quality of individuals and societies, takes on a particularly elusive character in the context of post-independence South Sudan. Resilience is not just a desirable quality; it is a necessity for survival. Communities rely on informal resilience methods and systems to cope with the constant absence of basic services such as food, water or wages – a situation clearly demonstrated by university workers and government workers across the country, which at the time of writing, lasted almost a year. without payment. However, this type of intensity is characterized by its unpredictability and, at times, its dangerous manifestations.
For example, in South Sudan’s Lakes State, children as young as ten years old form hunting parties to find food, often working without parental supervision. These young people show amazing survival skills, such as killing and butchering warthogs – animals many times their size. Such actions, although important for survival in this context, are unthinkable for children in more protected areas, such as those in Europe or North America, where the same demands of life do not exist, and childhood is built around significantly different expectations and protections. Similarly, violent movements have emerged as part of youth culture, demonstrating a type of resilience that challenges the frameworks of mainstream development. However, these resilience processes are presented as problematic from a developmental perspective because they are unregulated and resistant to external control. It can be violent, exclusionary, and oppositional, often directing others in ways that do not conform to the “systematic” rigidity envisioned by development actors.
A different formulation of resilience emerges within the framework of development frameworks – resilience as a bridge to development. Resilience is embedded within the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) nexus, where it plays an important role in the development discourse. Within this paradigm, resilience is mainly within the “P” factor – peacebuilding – but it serves more importantly as a preparatory basis for the “D” of development. For development workers, resilience serves two purposes: it is backward-looking in nature, aiming to prevent a relapse into conflict or difficulty, while at the same time it is forward-looking, preparing the basis for sustainable development progress. Therefore, this stabilization effort is framed as a transitional approach, covering the need for aid to stabilize fragile situations with ambitious long-term development goals.
Within the development paradigm, resilience is included as a necessary precursor to development; people and communities must first be strong before they can be said to be able to achieve “sustainable development”. This approach shows external actors’ rediscovery of resilience as a quality inherent in societies – especially in contexts considered fragile or affected by conflict. However, this inherent resilience is often seen as requiring systemic change. Unrefined and uncontrolled forms of intensity, such as those manifested in violence, must be redirected to intensifying violence in order to align with program development goals. This change represents a general reconfiguration of sustainability, where its “green” aspects are reshaped to fit the structured, non-threatening construct favored by international development organizations.
This approach can be seen in the terms of reference led by the UN, the Reconciliation, Stabilization and Resilience Multi-Donor Trust Fund (RSRTF) led by the UN in South Sudan, where, under its resilience pillar, “the fund aims to invest in the capacity and resources of the community. promoting equality, cooperation and confidence to ultimately reduce vulnerability to future shocks and stresses. Fitness activities are not independent programs. They are linked to identified conflict actors at sub-national and national levels and empower communities in conflict zones to reap the tangible benefits of socio-economic peace.”
Development programs often seek to empower communities by redirecting them away from violence-related practices and ancient practices, instead of strengthening existing capacities in forms that are compatible with libertarian ways. This process involves the promotion of a certain type of resilience – which emphasizes access to markets, justice, or education, thus cultivating liberal studies prepared to engage with development agencies. In this reconfiguration, resilience is not just about survival but about making individuals and communities “developmental”, reshaped into organizations deemed fit to engage with development actors and systems. The ultimate goal is to produce subjects capable of participating in and benefiting from a broader agenda of promoting freedom. Therefore, sustainability – as it has developed in this new form – has not replaced the concept of development, sustainability and direct involvement as has been explored by many scholars in the past, but instead has become a bridge that unites the colonies. because subjects that are not yet free can be developed.
A compelling example of conflict in resilience and peacemaking can be found in the peacebuilding conferences held among the Murle in the Greater Pibor region of South Sudan, as noted by one of the authors. The participants are placed in the same countries: on the one hand, they are embedded in their traditional structures of age groups and social practices, which may contain forms of violence; on the other hand, they engage as consumers of externally conducted workshops aimed at transforming them into peace champions or peace activists. These two indicate a disconnect between local realities and the assumptions that support international intervention.
A senior UN official from the UK, reflecting on this dynamic, noted that when organized youth violence occurs in the UK, there is no peace-building training. “We send the police and put them in jail”, as he said. This big difference raises an important question: why is there such a difference in methods? Does it come from the implicit assumption that societies like Murle are “immature” and should first be ready for liberal forms of governance and management? This differential treatment emphasizes the patriarchy that is fundamental to these interventions, framing certain individuals as needing reform before they can be integrated into the liberal system.
Intensification, in this context, serves as a preparatory method for the construction of a free subject. Communities and individuals are considered to be at a stage where they cannot fully engage with a liberal framework of governance, rights, and responsibilities. The same idea extends to the nation of South Sudan itself, which is often regarded as an entity that needs to be reformed before it can conform to liberal norms. This dynamic fosters a sensitive relationship between international donors and the context of South Sudan, characterized by a mixture of dependency, frustration, and control. A resilience program, within this framework, is less about addressing immediate needs and more about preparing the basis for the eventual integration of individuals, communities, and the state into a free development process. It represents an intermediate step in a broader project of liberal reform.
Further Studies in E-International Relations
Source link
