Victims, Witnesses and Survivors in the Boko Haram Insurgency and the Conceptual Stalemate Over Collateral Damage

Onoja Adagbo

Abstract



Collateral damage is a highly contested concept. This paper takes the inconclusive debate on the concept to victims, witnesses to and survivors of Boko Haram atrocities, given how the insurgency has been largely narrated as a harvest of collateral damage. This was done through a series of unstructured conversation with carefully selected respondents in urban Maiduguri across 2018 and 2019. It was in the context of Search for Common Ground’s program on Accountability Journalism aimed at enabling researchers to “increase visibility of salient and/or under-reported human rights issues in the Northeast”. The paper argues that the meaning of the concept of collateral damage supported by the discursive data from victims, witnesses and survivors of Boko Haram insurgency fundamentally critiques traditional Strategic Studies and its rational choice theoretic freezing of subjectivity. It is then further argued that the data strengthens the case for reflexivist approach to science as has been happily adopted and practicalised by critical security studies. This study, therefore, contributes methodologically to the phenomenological point of departure in studying puzzles involving meaning. It is also a rare attempt at applying reflexivity to victims and survivors of a violent conflict in Africa such as the cruel Boko Haram insurgency.

Full Text:

PDF

References


Amnesty International (2015) Our Job is to Shoot, Slaughter and Kill: Boko Haram’s Reign of Terror in North-East of Nigeria, London: Amnesty International

(2015) Stars on Their Shoulder, Blood on Their Hands: War Crimes Committed by the Nigerian Military, London: Amnesty International

Asad, T (2010) “Thinking About Terrorism and Just War”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Volume 23, Number 1,

Carpenter, C (2011) “Fighting the Laws of War: Protecting Civilians in Asymmetrical Conflicts”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 2

Chernoff, F (2007) Theory and Metatheory in International Relations: Concepts and Contending Accounts, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan

Condra, L & Shapiro, J (2012) “Who Takes the Blame? The Strategic Effects of Collateral Damage” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 56, No. 1

Conway-Lanz, S (2006) Collateral Damage: Americans, Non-combatant Immunity, and Atrocity After World War II, New York: Routledge

Cronin, B (2013) “Reckless Endangerment Warfare: Civilian Casualties and the Collateral Damage Exception in International Humanitarian Law”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 50, No. 2

Devine, F (1995) “Qualitative Analysis” in Marsh, D and Stoker, G. (Eds) Theory and Methods in Political Science, London: Palgrave Macmillan

Driscoll, C (2017) Book Review: “Collateral Damage: A Candid History of a Peculiar Form of Death By Frederick Rosen”; War and War Crimes: The Military, Legitimacy and Success in Armed Conflict”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 28, No. 2

(2012) “A ‘Fighting Chance’ or ‘Fighting Dirty’? Irregular Warfare, Michael Gross and the Spartans”, European Journal of Political Theory, Vol. 11, Issue 2

Foot, R (2005) “Collateral Damage: Human Rights Consequences of Counterterrorist Action in the Asia-Pacific”, International Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 2

Gross, M (2014) “Just War and Guerrilla War” in Lang, A; O’Driscoll, C & Williams, J (Eds) The Just War Tradition: The Practice of Authority and Authority in Practice, Washington: Georgetown University Press

(2009) Moral Dilemmas of Modern War: Torture, Assassination, and Blackmail in an Age of Asymmetric Conflict, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Hitchen, S (2018) “Collateral Damage: A Candid History of a Peculiar Form of Death By Frederik Rosén”, Political Studies Review, Vol. 16, No. 1

Human Rights Watch (2018) World Report 2018: Nigeria, New York: HRW

Jackson, P. and Nexon, D. (2012) “I CAN Has IR Theory?”, The Duck of Minerva Working Paper

Jackson, P (2011) The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and Its Implications for the Study of World Politics, London: Routledge;

Koppe, E (2013) “The Principle of Ambituity and the Prohibition against Excessive Collateral Damage to the Environment during Armed Conflict”, Nordic Journal of International Law 82

Rosen, F (2016) Collateral Damage: A Candid History of a Peculiar Form of Death, London: Hurst & Company 2016


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.