Knowing but not knowing: conflict, development and denial

Abstract

Drawing on case study material from Uganda and Nepal, this paper highlights the tension between what is ‘known’ and what is ‘done’ by practitioners working in the arena of conflict and development. It explores the forms of knowledge given conceptual and practical influence and the development interventions that are consequently sanctioned or sidelined. Examining Stanley Cohen's work on atrocities and suffering, the paper considers the explanatory potential of the concepts of denial and acknowledgement in the context of conflict and development. It argues that this approach opens conceptual and practical space in which to address the interplay between personal experiences of conflict contexts and institutional barriers to communication and changed practice.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to participants at the DSA Conflict and Human Security Study Group Workshop, November 2004 for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. We also thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and insights.

Notes

 1. Cohen, States of Denial, 279.

 2. Minnear and Weiss, Humanitarian Action in Times of War.

 3. Liu Institute, ‘Responding to the Crisis in Northern Uganda Conflict and Development Program’, 1.

 4. Caddell personal communication, November 2003.

 5. Cohen, States of Denial, 2001.

 6. For example, Uvin, ‘The Development/Peacebuilding Nexus’; and El Bushra, ‘Transforming power relations’.

 7. Caddell's fieldwork in Nepal was supported by an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2003 and a grant from the Open University Technology Faculty Research Fund in 2004.

 8. Fujikura, ‘Technologies of Improvement, Locations of Culture’.

 9. DfID, ‘Uganda: Country Strategy Paper, 1999’, 3. Only when President Museveni changed Uganda's constitution in order to run for a third term, and jailed his main opponent, did some donors cut their assistance and has Uganda's image been tainted.

10. De Renzio, ‘The primacy of domestic politics and the dilemmas of aid’, 1.

11. Seddon and Hussein ‘The Consequences of Conflict’, 4.

12. Jan Egland, ‘UN raises alarm on northern Uganda crisis’.

13. DfID, ‘Country Profiles, Uganda, 2004’.

14. Uvin, ‘The Development/Peacebuilding Nexus’, 6–21.

15. Mary B. Anderson, in Do No Harm wrote about the potentially negative effect of aid, and Mark Duffield incorporates this view in Global Governance and the New Wars. Anderson, Do No Harm; Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars.

16. For more on human security, see Paris, ‘Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?’, Tehranian, Worlds Apart, and Thomas, Governance, Development and Human Security. It is important to note that there has been a shift in the thinking around human security, as is outlined by Duffield and Waddell, ‘Securing Humans in a Dangerous World’, 19. They state: ‘The war on terrorism has problematised this particular governmental model of human security. Rather than prioritising the security of people living within ineffective states (a key manoeuvre in human security) the security of “homeland” populations has moved centre-stage. In a radically interdependent world, defending metropolitan livelihood systems and essential infrastructures, in short, its way of life, is premised upon securing the same in the global “borderland”. Compared to earlier more universalistic notions of human security, the particular species life to be secured is now more narrowly defined in terms of its potential for terrorism.’

17. For more on the political economy approach, see le Billon ‘The political economy of war’, Hoogvelt, ‘Intervention as management of exclusion’ and Stewart,’ Horizontal inequalities’.

18. For a further discussion of peacebuilding, see Goodhand, ‘Preparing to intervene’ and for a further discussion of conflict transformation see El Bushra, ‘Transforming Power Relations’.

19. Duffield and Waddell, ‘Securing Humans’, 16.

20. See Goodhand, ‘Preparing to intervene’, DfID, ‘Country Profiles, Uganda, 2004’, Smith and Vaux, ‘Education, Conflict and International Development’.

21. Crewe, ‘The Silent Traditions of Developing Cooks’, 59.

22. For discussion of silence and complicity in conflict see, Hammond, ‘Four Layers of Silence’, and Pettigrew and Schneiderman, ‘Women and the Maobaadi’.

23. Van Duijn, ‘In a State of Denial’.

24. For example, Goleman, Vital lies, simple truths; Clarkson, The Bystander; Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust; and Charny, Holding on to Humanity.

25. UNICEF, ‘At a Glance: Uganda’

26. With respect to Uganda, see World Bank, ‘The World Bank Group in Uganda: Country Brief 2003’, 4. With respect to Nepal, see ECECO, ‘Education in Difficult Circumstances’.

27. Grillo and Stirrat, Discourses of Development.

28. Mitchell, ‘The Object of Development’, 149.

29. Williams, ‘Modernising Malthus’.

30. Crewe, ‘The Silent Traditions’; Kaufman, ‘Watching the Developers: A Partial Ethnography’, 30.

31. Liu Institute, ‘Responding to the Crisis’; Yanacopulos, ‘A Think Piece in Dilemmas in Conflict and Development’; and Shaw, ‘Two Africas? Two Ugandas?’.

32. HMG, Education for All, 14.

33. Leopold, ‘Trying to Hold Things Together’ 94–108; and Van Duijn ‘In a State of Denial’.

34. Their first ‘conflict assessment’ was initiated in June 2000 and a conflict advisor appointed in October 2001.

35. Mitchell, ‘The Object of Development’, 149.

36. Gellner, ‘Introduction: The Transformation of the Nepalese State’, 4.

37. See Hoogevelt, ‘Intervention as management of exclusion’.

38. Ignatieff, quoted in Hard Choices. Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention, 289.

39. Ignatieff, quoted in Hard Choices. Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention, 289.

40. Macrae and Harmer, ‘Beyond the continuum’, 2, argue that the nature of human security has been altered through the ‘war on terror’. ‘While the language of counter-terrorism is largely new, many of the precepts on which such engagement is premised draw squarely on first generation thinking regarding the links between aid and conflict. This continuity of approach enables the “war on terror” to be framed within a wider agenda of human security.’

41. For example, El Bushra, ‘Transforming power relations; Uvin, ‘The Development/Peacebuilding Nexus’, Thomas, Global Governance, Development and Human Security; and Paris, ‘Human Security’.

42. DANIDA, for example, is constrained in its activities due to the prioritisation of state-focused interventions as Nepal is categorised as a ‘partnership’ country.

43. World Bank, ‘The World Bank Group’, 4.

44. Leopold, ‘Trying to Hold Things Together’, 94–108.

45. UNICEF, ‘At a Glance’.

46. Bellamy, ‘UNICEF Press Release 2004’.

47. For example, Smith and Vaux, ‘Education, Conflict and International Development’.

48. Crush, Power of Development, 10; Mitchell, ‘The Object of Development’; and Grillo and Stirrat, Discourses of Development.

49. Yanacopulos, ‘A Think Piece’ in Dilemmas in Conflict and Development; and Shaw, ‘Two Africas? Two Ugandas?’

50. Refugee Law Project, ‘Behind the Violence’.

51. USAID, ‘Uganda, Annual Report FY 2003’, 6.

52. Goodhand, ‘Preparing to intervene’.

53. Caddell personal interview, March 2004.

54. Cohen, States of Denial , 114, is referring to governments acknowledging human rights abuses. While the case of development agencies is not such an extreme scenario, the processes of acknowledgement are similar.

55. Goodhand and Hulme, ‘From Wars to Complex Political Emergencies’, 24.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martha Caddell

Martha Caddell, Lecturer in Development Studies at The Open University, UK. She has published articles and book chapters on various aspects of social development in Nepal. Her areas of research include donor responses to conflict, education in the context of war and violent conflict, and schooling and the promotion of citisenship.

Helen Yanacopulos

Helen Yanacopulos, Senior Lecturer in International Politics and Development at The Open University, UK. Her teaching and research focuses on various intersections between the fields of International Politics and Development, including political networks, political engagement in Development, and Conflict and Development.