'Killing a mosquito with a hammer': Al-Shabaab violence and state security responses in Kenya. (4th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lind, Jeremy; Mutahi, Patrick; Oosterom, Marjoke
• Is Part Of: Peacebuilding. Volume 5:Number 2(2017)
• Page Start: 118
• Page End: 135
• Publication Date: 2017-05-04
• Subjects: Insurgent margins -- external stresses -- security -- Kenya -- Somalis; Peace-building -- Periodicals; Peace -- Periodicals; Mediation -- Periodicals; Conflict management -- Periodicals; Nation-building -- Periodicals; 327.172
• DOI: 10.1080/21647259.2016.1277010
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2164-7259

Abstract

Abstract: Networked, transnational forms of violence pose a significant threat to peace and security in a number of sub-Saharan African countries. In recent years, Kenya has witnessed an expanding number of attacks involving Al-Shabaab – the Somali-based militant organisation. Kenya's state responses to these attacks derive from a social construction of Somalis as a threatening presence, justifying a raft of hard security measures. However, this targeting has been counter-productive by driving a deeper wedge between Somalis, other Muslims and the state, and levels of Al-Shabaab violence have remained high. Seen from the social and political margins that Kenya's Somali and Muslim populations occupy, recent violence continues a long-standing dynamic of insecurity in which the state itself is a central actor. Internal stress relating to state-led planning of social order built on unequal citizenships and the use of violence, enmesh with the external threat of Al-Shabaab, producing the conditions for insurgency and violence to spread. Reducing violence and building peace require greater understanding of how violence and security are seen and experienced at the margins.