Lost in translation: why Nigeria's police don't implement democratic reforms

The transfer of democratic values and practices such as community‐based policing to African police forces is a key aspect of western aid and security policies, yet the cultural transmission on which it depends is not fully understood; the ways in which African officers respond to theories and practices imported from western societies has yet to be assessed critically. Further, despite decades of international support for police reform and re‐education, there is little evidence to support the assumption that the skills, technologies and procedures associated with western policing can act as an effective channel for the transmission of democratic values. This article uses the Nigerian police's response to both externally funded and internally generated reform projects to address a question with implications for policy transfer more generally: what explains the uneven transmission of politically sensitive forms of knowledge? It discusses how imported ideas and practices are received by Nigerian officers and political elites, and how they are transformed having been filtered through local interests and dispositions. It shows that even when the process of reform is accepted, the political will required to ensure its effective implementation is not. Democratic practices do not travel well because recipients respond to imported practices in an adaptive manner, integrating aspects of donor understanding and indigenous realities.     

Off‐road policing: communications technology and government authority in Somaliland

Prompted by the trend to see information and communications technology (ICT) as a tool for capacity building, this article asks whether the use of ICT has—or can—recast centre–periphery relations in a hybrid country such as Somaliland. Taking as its departure point Herbst's observation that a fundamental problem confronting African leaders concerns how to extend or consolidate authority over sparsely settled lands, it uses recent developments in Somaliland's coast guard and immigration police to assess ICT's contribution to changing security provision in remote and coastal areas. This allows for an analysis of Somaliland's law enforcement framework, the relationship between its politics and practice, the practical application of its coercive resources, and the Silanyo government's priorities and preference for consensus and co‐existence whenever security imperatives allow. It suggests that ICT can be a desirable operational tool or a variable in existing power networks, but that it does not represent a new mode of security governance. ICT's potential to connect Somaliland's government and populace, and politics and practice, is for now minimal, but identifying the ways in which security actors such as coast guards actually use ICT allows for a more accurate assessment of the variables shaping centre–periphery relations. Contrary to Herbst's observation, the Silanyo government does not need to overtly or systematically extend, consolidate or exert its authority in remote and coastal areas. Spatial metaphors such as centre–periphery help to clarify the situation, but the significance invested in them reflects western rationalities, rather than Somali realities.     

Gender Ideology in Historical Reconstruction: A Case Study from the 1930s

You are probably aware of the fact that homes are being wrecked daily due to the fact that married women are permitted to work in factories and offices in this land of ours. You and we all know that the place for a wife and mother is at home, her palace. The excuse is often brought up that the husband cannot find employment. It is the writers’ belief that if the women were expelled from places of business,…these very men would find employment. These same womens’ husbands would naturally be paid a higher salary, inasmuch as male employees demand a higher salary than females.¹     

OFFSHORE FINDS FROM THE BRONZE AGE IN NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE: THE SHIPWRECK SCENARIO REVISITED

Summary.   This article challenges received thinking relating to the interpretation of Bronze Age finds from the seabed in the waters of north-western Europe, especially the North Sea and Channel area. Metal objects recovered from the sea are traditionally presumed to be the result of shipwrecks. As such, their interpretation as casual, if unfortunate loss is unquestioned. However, abandoning the shipwreck scenario as a remnant of the 'sacred vs profane' heuristic, it is suggested that offshore finds could provide insight into deliberate Bronze Age maritime practice, rather than misadventure. Certain patterning in the data of offshore finds, including affinities with hoards on terra firma , urges another interpretive framework – that of considering the sea as a place for deposition. This appeared to be the case particularly in regions which experienced an intensity of maritime interaction, such as the Channel area during the later Bronze Age. From this it is hypothesized that rather than being considered outside the Bronze Age social realm, the sea, especially in the MBA to earlier LBA in the Channel area, was incorporated into Bronze Age cosmology in similar ways to other zones in the landscape.     

Through the Eyes of Women: Photovoice and participatory research as tools for reimagining place

In this article, the author explores how one particular group of working-class women living in Belfast, the North of Ireland, experience the place(s) in which they live. The perspective of place that this exploration is embedded in represents the accumulation of multiple person-place relationships that are mediated by the sociopolitical history of the North of Ireland, as well as by the gendered, classed, and religious-mediated contexts in which the women live. The author explores the relationship between place and identity by describing a feminist participatory action research (PAR) project that she engaged in with a group of women living in Belfast (which included the use of photovoice as a tool for investigating people's lives) that provided them with a culturally relevant lens through which to view the relationship between place and the everyday lives of Irish women. Out of that investigation, the author and the women designed a photo-text exhibit that provides knowledge to local and international communities about the ways in which women engage in the formulation and reformulation of place and identity within contexts of everyday life.     

Constructing a shared public identity in ethno nationally divided societies: comparing consociational and transformationist perspectives

ABSTRACT. In order to bolster sustainable peace building in violently divided societies, a normative suggestion is that efforts should be made to construct a shared public identity that overarches ethnic divisions. A number of different centripetal/transformationist processes are identified as engineering a shared identity in comparison to consociational arrangements, which are accused of institutionalising ethnic differences and perpetuating conflict. These transformationist approaches essentially rest on the premise that because ethnicity is constructed it can be reconstructed into new, shared forms. Looking at Northern Ireland, we argue that there are limits to the extent that ethnicity can be reconstructed into shared identities. By analysing consociational and centripetalist/transformationist approaches to division, we conclude that although consociationalism will probably not deliver a common identity, it does provide a robust form of conflict regulation.