La transformación del paisaje forestal de Los Comunes hasta el siglo

To capture the empirical reality of a place such as Peyima, we need a more inclusive conception of actors, processes and practices of authority in the security and justice field than what is captured by the concept of ‘the state’. A first step towards a concept of hybridity is to disaggregate the notion of authority, not only of the state, but also of traditional leaders, into a variety of different practices in the lives of ordinary people. In this perspective, the enforcement of security and justice is considered a field of action that is historically produced through particular discourses and practices that, in turn, constitute particular subjects and objects of governance. Rather than seeing the post-colonial state as weak or powerful, this approach emphasizes its multiple shapes and sets of rules, as well as its dis-unified center.

This multiplicity is captured in much of the empirically-founded literature that explores authority in contexts where it is not necessarily the prerogative of state institutions to enforce order (e.g. Hansen and Stepputat 2001, 2005; Das and Poole 2004; Lund 2002, 2006, 2008). On the one hand, an approach of this nature enables us to understand “the operation of authorities in a disaggregated manner and to de-emphasize the state as the ultimate seat of power” (Sharma and Gupta 2006:9). On the other hand, it supports the importance of “examining the dispersed institutional and social networks through which rule is coordinated and consolidated, and the role that non-state institutions, communities and individuals play in the mundane processes of governance” (ibid.). This analytical perspective expresses a ‘multitude-ness’ of what and who holds the authority to govern and exposes it to investigation, which the depiction of the ideal state as a Leviathan does not.14

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Hobbes’s (1985) Leviathan may be dismissed in today’s world of liberal democracies, but it could be argued that at the source of state-building discourses lies the concept of a ‘benevolent Leviathan’, a strong

Hansen and Stepputat (2001; 2005) take us further in this analysis. In their explorations of how to conceptualize the post-colonial state, they reject the concept of the state as an ahistorical entity that has certain assumed core functions (Hansen and Stepputat 2001:1). On one level, this analytical approach is in accord with the Marxist-inspired thinking of Gramsci and his reflections on the logic of how the state functions. Gramsci rejects that specific governmental institutions, together comprising “the State”, are the effective far- reaching instruments of a “dominant group” (Gramsci 1971:182): “[T]he state is conceived of as a continuous process of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria … between the interest of fundamental [i.e., dominant] groups and those of the subordinate group…” (ibid.).

In this way Gramsci de-naturalizes the state by portraying it as embedded in politics and therefore as an unstable, partial construct with a social foundation. This understanding of the state as unstable and interest-driven is not always addressed in literature on fragile and weak states. If it is addressed, it is done so only superficially (Stepputat et al. 2007:16). The political and ultimately unstable basis of the state construct is further captured in Mitchell’s (2006 [1999]:176) questioning of the state as “an actor, with the coherence, agency, and autonomy that this term presumes.” Similarly, Abrams (2006 [1988]) and Taussig (1991), each in their own way, de-naturalize the state as a set of unitary, technical and neutral institutions of governance, pointing to their political, violent and partial foundation (see also Emirbayer 1997:285)15. The aim of these authors is to render probable that the modern state is not a singular source of power, and following from this, to outline how it may be unfolded and conceptualized (see also Aretxaga 2003:395).16

government as the most reliable and effective form of government.

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Emirbayer (1997:285) makes the point that holistic theories and ‘structuralisms’ posit self-subsistent ‘societies’, ‘structures’ or ‘social systems’ as the exclusive source of action. Proponents of these approaches, from neo-functionalists to many historical-comparative analysts, all too often fall back upon the assumption that it is durable, coherent entities that constitute the legitimate starting points of all sociological enquiry.

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In Latour, we find a parallel argument for moving beyond Durkheimian thought of society as a separate ontological domain that can explain religion, law or politics. Instead, Latour (2000:113) argues for a concept of ‘society’ that is “composed, made up, constructed, established, maintained and assembled. It is no longer to be taken as the hidden source of causality which could be mobilized so as to account for the existence and stability of some other action or behaviour” (see also Latour 2005:45).

To do so, Hansen and Stepputat (2001) also seek inspiration from Foucault (1978, 1991), who sees the state as the effect of a wider range of dispersed forms of power.17 It is precisely the intensity of the unitary imagery condensed within the state that is an obstacle to understanding politics as the means by which we render our worlds governable (Dean 2001).

A simulacrum, “it” – the state – appears as a structure that stands apart from, and above, society. The conceptual separation between the state and society and the political significance of maintaining a boundary between the two domains are themselves important mechanisms to generate resources of power through inclusion and exclusion across boundaries (see Mitchell 2006 [1999]:174+175). Inherent in this imagined split between state and society is the creation of boundaries between those practices and spaces that are considered to form part of the state and those that are excluded (Nugent 1994).

The state as a unitary actor might be a social fact as Abrams (2006 [1999]:122; see also Kapferer and Bertelsen 2009:6) suggests, but it is not a fact of nature. This leads to a problematization of the state as a material object of study, whether concrete or abstract, while taking “the idea of the state” seriously (Abrams (2006 [1999]:122). From this follows the need to study the internal and external relations of political and governmental institutions – what Abrams refers to as the state system – without postulating the reality of the state. Thus, the state encompasses both a system of tangible institutions and an idea of

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Foucault’s position in the social sciences, and particularly in anthropology, is precarious. While he has been a source of great inspiration (Carrier 1992; Knauft 1994; Coronil 1996; Mosse 2005), applying his theories to ethnographic data is methodologically problematic. Foucault’s focus was on the Western nation- state, specifically France. It should be self-evident, therefore, that his considerable contributions to the workings of power and the governing of societies cannot simply be extrapolated to analyses of the provision of security and justice in rural Sierra Leone. Indeed, Dean (2010), in his development of the concept of ‘international governmentality’, admits that Foucault’s work drew mainly on the history of European countries and made very little reference to how the arts of government operate in an international domain, which would preclude both the world outside Europe and international politics. A more serious methodological problem stems from Foucault’s ontological point of departure – his academic discipline. “Foucault was not a sociologist nor a social scientist,” Callewaert (2006:74) insists. He was a philosopher and a specialist of the history of sciences and knowledge, who questioned the very possibility of social science. He reconstructed the ‘liberal’ understanding of man and society as discourse, and was in this process describing the history of knowledge rather than social history (Callewaert 2006:91). In sum, therefore, while Foucault might be helpful in aiming the arrow, he will not help us hit the target. This should be part of any researchers ‘participant objectivation’ (Bourdieu 2003), prior to applying Foucault’s analytical considerations to data collected through ethnographic fieldwork.

what it is or ought to be, and allows us to see it as both illusory and a set of concrete institutions, distant and impersonal as well as localized and personified.

Inherent to the perspective that Hansen and Stepputat, among others, put forward is the danger of over-emphasizing the state. This is hardly a subverting critique, insofar as the aforementioned scholars all explicitly engage with and seek to understand its sociology. However, one is left wondering what exists between the cracks of the disaggregated political entity that we refer to as the state. It is to this area of the research that I now turn. I argue that authority should be understood as an amalgam of languages of stateness and public authority, which suggests the multiple sources that constitute the authority to make order. For example, legal documents, community policing discourse introduced through SSR, secret society membership and autochthon status obviously do not emanate from the same source of authority. And yet, paramount and lesser chiefs in Sierra Leone potentially draw on all of these different sources simultaneously to reflect the hybrid order they embody.