Hybridisation in a Case of Diamond Theft in Rural Sierra Leone. Issue 3 (27th May 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Albrecht, Peter
• Is Part Of: Ethnos. Volume 83:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 567
• Page End: 586
• Publication Date: 2018-05-27
• Subjects: Sierra Leone -- hybridity -- simultaneity -- chiefs -- security and justice; Ethnology -- Periodicals; Archaeology -- Periodicals; 305.8
• DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2016.1263229
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0014-1844

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Drawing on cultural studies, the concept of hybridity has emerged in peace and conflict studies as an important critique of the fragile failed/state discourse, and the binaries whereby the modern state is often contrasted with traditional or non-state actors. The concept is also challenged for reproducing the very binaries that it seeks to overcome and lacking analytical vigour. The paper addresses these critiques by exploring a case of diamond theft in rural Sierra Leone. It suggests an analytical shift from interaction between state institutions (police) and non-state authorities (traditional leaders) to focusing on processes of hybridisation through the enactment and performativity of authority. This is an analytical move from preconceived cultural and political entities to the subject and the simultaneous quality of how he or she assembles and projects authority. It is in the subject's strategies and practices at the micro level that we clearly see how hybridisation processes occur.