Cultures of Intervention

Welcome!


The research group on Cultures of Interventions (IK) is presently located at the University of Oldenburg, Germany.

Research focusses on the effects and impact of humanitarian military interventions on the intervened as well as on the interveners/interventionists themselves.

Please note that for the purpose of clarity we are regularly using the term „the intervened“ for persons and groups subject to the intervention. We use “the interveners” when referring to the concrete actors in an intervention, while the term “interventionists” is reserved for those who do intervene as a legal party in a legal proceeding (legal from the viewpoint of the directing government).

Today a broader conception of humanitarian intervention prevails: Formerly defined as coercive action by at least one international actor in a state without the consent of its authority and with the purpose to end violence, humanitarian interventions are now understood not only to bring peace but to establish a new and peaceful social order in the intervened region. Accordingly, what has formally been characterized as peacekeeping is now labelled as state-building or even society-building. 
However, social and political reforms are not intrinsically promoting peace: although the creation of a free and just society will supposedly bring peace and security in the long term, the first years after an intervention turn out to be turbulent. Some intervened may be disappointed by the slow progress of reforms while at the same time powerful segments of the intervened population may oppose the process of rebuilding in general. More importantly, the interveners fail to be aware of their involvement with the intervened society. The arrival of the interveners turns the local society (or societies) into a society of intervention, including both, the interveners and the intervened. For example: “Our” words and ideas are used to formulate “their” truly local concepts, e.g., of a national educational system or of an “own” institutionalization of social equity and so on.
A large-scale humanitarian intervention produces a new culture: a set of symbols, norms and patterns of behaviour which is needed for any interaction.
Thus, humanitarian Interventions cause all-encompassing re-adjustments of the social order in the intervened regions that result in a multitude of conflicts.
It is crucial for any political strategic planning to take into account the cultural effects of interventions, especially since local ownership has become a central leitmotiv of modern statebuilding-missions.
 
Cognitive interest of IK is the relationship between the interveners and the local societies (the intervened), the society of intervention (local
societies and interveners), as we call it, with its culture-generated
conflicts that emerge in the course of continuing post-conflict structures.

Thematic issues are:

  • The collusive relation between intervened societies and the cultural and social texture of the intervening groups
  • The emergence of a new type of conflicts stemming from this collusive relation and not directly linked to the causes of the original conflict
  • The widening gap between developments on system level, e.g. state-building and in the life-world of the intervened, e.g. new forms of society building
  • The relevance of the homeland discourse in the countries of origin of the interventionists
  • Legal pluralism and customary law; matters of trust, tradition and lifestyle under the influence of the intervention

 

 
Much theoretical background of our works is derived from theories of Pierre Bourdieu (on Algeria, and on the construction of habitus). Pierre Bourdieu has developed a scientific framework for the analysis of those changes and conflicts when he was studying the effects of French policies in Algeria in the 1960s. His insights and methods have rarely been utilized for the study of contemporary interventions yet. The research network Cultures of Interventions aims at bringing back a more sociological and ethnographical approach in the study of today’s interventions.

We are in close exchange with the major networks of peace&conflict studies and of  research groups both on site in the target societies and "at home". We also work with leading anthropologists in the field. There is a close link with graduate students who do their doctoral work in the context of IK or have started to write their theses. 

Target societies at present are Afghanistan, Kosovo and Liberia.


IK recently hosted a coordinating conference on the topic:

Conflicts after Humanitarian Military Interventions,

18th and 19th APRIL 2008, at the University of Potsdam, Germany

                                                                funded by Bild

in cooperation with the University of Potdam, with German as a conference language. It will be funded by the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF).
There will be an international follow-up conference in 2009, in English and other conference languages. Meanwhile, we try to establish a structured network with a regular updating of partners both in the target countries and within the research community.

The core group of IK consists of Prof. Thomas Alkemeyer (U Oldenburg), Prof. Thorsten Bonacker (Center for Conflict Studies, U Marburg), Prof. Michael Daxner U Oldenburg, speaker), Prof. Erhard Stölting (Military Studies, U Potsdam), Prof. Anabella Weismann (U Oldenburg).


This page is under reconstruction. It will soon be updated. Please keep visiting the site.