“Hate” and “Security Vacuum”: How Not to Ask the Right Questions about a Confusing Crisis

Abstract

Fieldsights - Hot Spots, Cultural Anthropology Onlinehttp://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/545-neither-hate-nor-security-vacuum-how-not-to-ask-the-right-questions-about-a-confusing-crisisDiscourses on the crisis in the Central African Republic have quite confusedly evoked humanitarian and security issues. The two frameworks frequently applied to the conflict—“hate” and “genocide” on the one hand, “security vacuum” on the other—are erroneous and incomplete. But they have helped shape international responses to the crisis and in so doing have contributed to their failure