Caracteres climáticos

The situational analysis of how assemblages take form and fall apart in different sites was viewed as constitutive of particular extended case studies,35 because assemblages in the justice and security field extend beyond the particular locality and event (Gluckman 1961; Epstein 1967; van Velsen 1978; Mitchell 1983). An extended case study consists of a detailed examination of a sequence of events over a rather long period of time where the same actors are involved and in which their social positions are specified (Mitchell, 1983). As such, it was a useful method in my research because it takes into account how actors, discourses and things are governed by different and sometimes conflicting norms and usages. It emphasizes the process aspect of a particular social phenomenon and traces the events in which the same set of main actors are involved (Mitchell 1983:194). The focus in the extended case study on process allows for a time-oriented perspective on both continuity and ruptures in ongoing events (Moore 1987).

In this sense, the extended case study allows the analysis to go beyond the immediate issue of order enforcement to de-construct larger processes of power that are integral to field dynamics and thus affect how assemblages take form. In other words, the immediate issue might appear to be a criminal act, but a thorough analysis of actors, actions and claims made reveals how social processes evolve. Only by combining observations of how a case of theft is dealt with, for instance, and subsequent discussions with the individuals involved, is it possible to reach a comprehensive understanding of precisely how order is made in a concrete situation.

A case study focuses on a particular place and specific events, but these places are neither bounded nor isolated (Gupta and Ferguson 1997). Peyima, Tombodu, Freetown, and London are all connected by political and productive processes, events, times, places, people and things. In this way, a case study is simultaneously specific and also related to larger processes (Hammar 2007:53) and multiple sites. This does not mean that cases are necessarily representative or generalizable. Rather, they are to be perceived as what Moore

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The Manchester school was the first to conceptualize the ‘extended case-study’ as ‘extending out’ from the field (see Burawoy, 1998).

(1987) calls a ‘diagnostic event’, in that they reflect the larger processes under investigation and reveal the tensions and dynamics of social change.

I chose to follow crimes that occurred in Peyima and Kamara Chiefdom. Since few cases are recorded in this local justice and security system, being present, waiting for ‘something’ to happen and observing how people reacted to a criminal act was important. To understand normal types of crime, two research assistants carried out a survey among 90 respondents in Kamara Chiefdom, Nimikoro Chiefdom and Nimiyama Chiefdom. The answers to the survey resulted in a basic inventory of ‘threats to security’, and included issues such as ‘abusive language’ (‘threatening remarks’), theft of poultry, palm oil and diamonds, acts of physical violence (fighting and rape) and disagreements over land demarcations.36

I chose the cases explored in this dissertation because they were rich in detail, included a number of events and had the potential to constitute in-depth narratives of how various types of authority came into play to constitute a hybrid order and its reproduction. These cases were studied as diagnostic, rather than for the ability to generalize from them. This was an inductive process, pursuing a strategy of grounded theory where the notion of ‘foundational hybridity’, for instance, was derived from data (see Charmaz 2005; Thomas and James 2006). While I did not have a clear theoretical framework that I went out to ‘test’ in the field, I did have a clear sense of the area that I wanted to explore, at least on a rudimentary conceptual level that changed fundamentally as the project progressed: how non-state actors create order in rural Sierra Leone. The theoretical reflections of this

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In addition, for the project regarding SSR in Sierra Leone that I conducted in 2007-2009, a survey of 250 respondents was carried out, indicating listing three broad categories of crimes: 1. Social violence, including

sexual violence: rape, gendered violence, street violence, drug taking, youth unemployment, armed theft,

unlawful allocation of land, town mining, chiefs’ misallocation of land; 2. ‘Classic’ security threats: inadequate coverage of security forces, too few SLP night patrols, bribery of security forces, lack of screening of security personnel, use of ex-combatants as security personnel, poor judicial system, inadequate conditions of service for security personnel; 3. Wider environmental threats from outside the community: predominance of small arms and smuggling, international smuggling, criminal activity related to drugs, smuggling of people, especially children) (Albrecht and Jackson 2009:192). Primary information was collected from 250 respondents through questionnaires, group discussions and focus group interviews. The survey gathered information about the following issues: 1. The visibility of the armed forces and the SLP; 2. The degree to which changes relating to the security system transformation process have been accepted by the local population; 3. The degree to which the armed forces are accepted by the population; 4. The perceived impact of security SSR; 5. Knowledge of SSR processes.

dissertation, including that the ‘non-state’ concept does not help us understand how authority is articulated, developed from this point of departure.

There is, of course, a danger in selecting some cases over others. Walton (1992) argues that a duality is inherent in the use of the term ‘case’. Cases imply particularity. They are situational and provide specific, limited views of social life. At the same time, cases are presented under the pretense of doing something more, of implying that something general is being said from the particular (ibid.:121). This claim to generalizability, Nuijten suggests, makes it important to elaborate the background upon which cases are presented and to make conscious theoretical reflections on the way we present the cases. For example, it is important to reflect on whether a case is intended to convey how conflicts are normally settled or whether the case is chosen to trace how different, even diverging, elements may be decisive in the resolution of a conflict (Nuijten 1998:26-7).

In this research, I use the extended case study approach in both senses, made up of triangulated data. These case studies were analyzed in relation to the greater number of less detailed cases that were collected through conversations, observations and by research assistance.