The war machines : young men and violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia / Danny Hoffman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hoffman, Danny, 1972-

Series:

Cultures and practice of violence series

The cultures and practice of violence series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Militia movements.

History.

Sierra Leone--History--Civil War, 1991-2002--Participation, Juvenile.

Sierra Leone.

Liberia--History--Civil War, 1989-1996--Participation, Juvenile.

Liberia.

Liberia--History--Civil War, 1999-2003--Participation, Juvenile.

Militia movements--Sierra Leone--History.

Militia movements--Liberia--History.

Physical Description:

xxii, 295 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 2011.

Summary:

In The War Machines, Danny Hoffman considers how young men are made a available for violent labor on the battlefields and in the diamond mines, rubber plantations, and other unregulated industries of West Africa. Based on his ethnographic research with militia groups in Sierra Leone and Liberia during those countries' recent civil wars, Hoffman traces the path of young fighters who moved from grassroots community-defense organizations in Sierra Leone during the mid-1990 into a large pool of mercenary labor.

Hoffman argues that in contemporary West Africa, space, sociality, and life itself are organized around making young men available for all manner of dangerous work. Drawing on his ethnographic research over the past nine years, as well as the anthropology of violence, interdisciplinary security studies, and contemporary critical theory, he maintains that the mobilization of West African men exemplifies a global trend in the outsourcing of warfare and security operations. A similar dynamic underlies the political economy of violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and a growing number of postcolonial spaces. An experienced photojournalist, Hoffman integrates more than fifty of his photographs of young West Africans into The War Machines. Book jacket.

Contents:

The Mano River war : a chronology

Hunters, lumpens, and war boys : a social history of the Kamajors, part 1

States of conflict : a social history of the Kamajors, part 2

Big men, small boys

The barracks

The hotel Kamajor

The magic of war.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780822350590

0822350599

9780822350774

0822350777

OCLC:

700406631