![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper addresses an important critique of hybridity as it has been applied in peace and security studies. On the one hand, it has assumed separation and otherness, because of its point of departure in understanding what occurs in the meeting between international and national (or local) actors in peacebuilding processes. At the same time, there is a danger of overemphasising positive accommodation, while not detailing what processes of hybridisation entail in practice. By exploring police reform in Sierra Leone, the paper shows the inherent tension that characterises hybridisation, and how positive accommodation as well as separation occurs simultaneously.
Acknowledgements
This paper was initially presented at the Australian National University in December 2015 at the workshop Hybridity: History, Power and Scale. Special thanks to its organisers, and to the editors of this special issue: Sinclair Dinnen, Miranda Forsyth, Lia Kent, Jacinta O’Hagan, Joanne Wallis and Srinjoy Bose. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of the paper, who helped sharpen its clarity significantly.
Notes
1. CPDTF, Sierra Leone Police: Re-introduction of Effective Operational Policing.
2. Denney, Justice and Security Reform; Denney, “Overcoming the State/Non-State Divide”; and Krogstad, “Security, Development and Force.”
3. Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 29.
4. A number of primary data sets forms the basis of this paper. First, ethnographic fieldwork was carried out in Peyima, a town in Kamara Chiefdom, Kono district, in eastern Sierra Leone, primarily in 2008 and 2009. The focus was on how security and justice are organised locally, by whom and with what implications. A second data-set is drawn from my work as a consultant for the United Kingdom (UK) funded Access to Security and Justice Programme (ASJP) in 2012–2013. Specifically, I carried out an in-depth study of community policing across the country (Albrecht et al. 2014). Third, an extensive body of data, collected between 2005 and 2017, informs the paper. It involved extensive engagement with key individuals across Sierra Leone’s security and justice sectors to write the history of security sector reform in Sierra Leone from the late 1990s up until 2013 (see Albrecht and Jackson 2009, 2014; Jackson and Albrecht 2011). All interviewees gave oral consent to participating with a view to future quotation in publications. Where interviewees made the request, or where I felt that a particular statement was particularly controversial, anonymity has been granted.
5. Pieterse, “Hybridity, So What?”; Hutnyk, “Hybridity,” 83; and Wade, “Hybridity Theory and Kinship Thinking,” 604.
6. Young, Colonial Desire, 25.
7. Sierra Leone’s 149 chiefdoms are governed by paramount chiefs and divided into a number of sections that are led by section chiefs. Each village within the sections are overseen by headmen, also referred to as town chiefs (Albrecht 2010:6).
8. Albrecht, “The Chiefs of Community Policing”; Albrecht, “Secrets, Strangers and Order-Making”; Albrecht, “Hybridisation in a Case of Diamond Theft”; Albrecht, “The Hybrid Authority of Sierra Leone’s Chiefs”; Fanthorpe, “Locating the Politics of a Sierra Leonean Chiefdom”; Fanthorpe, “Neither Citizen Nor Subject?”; and Fanthorpe, “On the Limits of Liberal Peace.”
9. Denney, Justice and Security Reform; and Denney, “Overcoming the State/Non-State Divide.”
10. For an extensive discussion of security sector reform in Sierra Leone, see Albrecht and Jackson, Securing Sierra Leone.
11. Boege et al., “Hybrid Political Orders, Not Fragile States”; Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace; and Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance.
12. Millar, An Ethnographic Approach to Peacebuilding.
13. Albrecht and Moe, “The Simultaneity of Authority in Hybrid Orders.”
14. Albrecht, “Hybridisation in a Case of Diamond Theft.”
15. Boege et al., “Hybrid Political Orders, Not Fragile States”; Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace; and Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance.
16. Clifford, “Diasporas.”
17. Ibid.; Clifford, “Taking Identity Politics Seriously.”
18. Clifford, “Traveling Cultures.”
19. Albrecht, “Hybridisation in a Case of Diamond Theft,” 10.
20. Albrecht and Moe, “The Simultaneity of Authority in Hybrid Orders,” 4.
21. Albrecht, “The Chiefs of Community Policing,” 3.
22. Albrecht, “Hybridisation in a Case of Diamond Theft.”
23. Baker, “Hybridity in Policing,” 298; Friedman, “The Hybridization of Roots and the Abhorrence of the Bush,” 249; and Sahlins, “Two or Three Things that I Know About Culture.”
24. Albrecht, “Hybridisation in a Case of Diamond Theft.”
25. Werbner “The Limits of Cultural Hybridity,” 81.
26. Shoshana, “When the Hybrid Met the Therapeutic,” 154.
27. Hutnyk, “Hybridity,” 154.
28. Albrecht, “Hybridisation in a Case of Diamond Theft.”
29. Ferguson and Gupta, “Spatializing States,” 107.
30. Krogstad, “Security, Development and Force,” 171.
31. Jackson and Albrecht, Reconstructing Security After Conflict, 52–3.
32. Horn quoted in Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 32.
33. Notes, Adrian Horn, not published.
34. Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 33.
35. The appointment of a British national to the position of Chief of Defence Staff was considered in 2000 during the British intervention in Sierra Leone. However, the idea was rejected as being too controversial (Interview, Paul Richards, 2008; interview, Keith Biddle, June 2009).
36. Keith Biddle, interview, June 2009.
37. Ibid.
38. Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 29.
39. Keith Biddle, interview, June 2009.
40. Horn quoted in Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 32.
41. See Krogstad, “Security, Development and Force,” 159–65.
42. Albrecht, “The Hybrid Authority of Sierra Leone’s Chiefs”; Fanthorpe, “On the Limits of Liberal Peace”; Jackson, “Chiefs, Money and Politicians”; and Sawyer, “Remove or Reform?”
43. Kabbah, “Speeches Delivered at Kenema, Bo, Makeni, and Port Loko to the Newly Elected Paramount Chiefs, January 2003.”
44. Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 91–2.
45. Albrecht, “Transforming Internal Security in Sierra Leone,” 69.
46. White, “The Security-Development Nexus in Sierra Leone,” 77.
47. Albrecht, “Transforming Internal Security in Sierra Leone,” 69 + 70.
48. Howlett-Bolton, “Aiming for Holistic Approaches to Justice Sector Development,” 8.
49. Albrecht, “The Hybrid Authority of Sierra Leone’s Chiefs.”
50. Albrecht, “The Chiefs of Community Policing,” 613.
51. Ibid., 617.
52. JSDP, National Policy Framework for the Justice Sector in Sierra Leone.
53. GOSL, Justice Sector Reform Strategy and Investment Plan 2008–2010, V.
54. Howlett-Bolton, “Aiming for Holistic Approaches to Justice Sector Development,” 8.
55. Krogstad, “Security, Development and Force,” 220.
56. Bredemear et al., JSDP Output to Purpose Review.
57. Interview, Brima Acha Kamara, May 2009.
58. Albrecht and Kyed, “Introduction,” 5.
59. See Goldstone, “Pathways to State Failure,” 285–6.
60. Baker, Multi-choice Policing in Africa, 158.
61. Bredemear et al., JSDP Output to Purpose Review; Bredemear and Lewis, Justice Sector Development Program; and Biesheuvel et al., Justice Sector Development Programme.
62. Horn et al., Sierra Leone Police Review of Capabilities, 36.
63. Mannah, Paper on Key Issues on Community Policing.
64. Albrecht, “Transforming Internal Security in Sierra Leone,” 9.
65. Interview, Kellie Conteh, August 2008.
66. Albrecht et al., “Community Policing in Sierra Leone,” 11.
67. Kamara quoted in Albrecht, “The Chiefs of Community Policing,” 618.
68. King and Albrecht, “Secret Societies and Order-Making in Freetown.”
69. Albrecht, “The Hybrid Authority of Sierra Leone’s Chiefs.”
70. Albrecht et al., “Community Policing in Sierra Leone.”
71. SLP, Sierra Leone Police Local Policing Partnership Board Constitution.
72. SLP, Proposed Guidelines and Codes of Conduct for Operations of the Local Policing Partnership Boards of Sierra Leone.
73. SLP, Sierra Leone Police Local Policing Partnership Board Constitution.
74. Ibid.
75. Keith Biddle interview, June 2009.
76. Interview, Mustapha Kambeh, March 2009.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Albrecht, “Private Security beyond the Private Sector,” 65.
80. Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance, 72.
81. Albrecht, “Hybridisation in a Case of Diamond Theft.”
82. DfID, Eliminating World Poverty, 74–5.
83. DfID, TOR for Improved Access to Security and Justice Programme in Sierra Leone (IASJP).
84. Horn et al., Sierra Leone Police Review of Capabilities, 15.
85. Ibid.
86. Albrecht and Jackson, Securing Sierra Leone, 140.
87. Interview, consultant #1, August 2013.
88. Interview, consultant #2, October 2013. Based on experience of the author of this paper, this is not uncommon.
89. Libra Advisory Group, “Interim Program Document.”
90. Ibid.
91. Albrecht and Jackson, Securing Sierra Leone, 141.
92. Ibid.
93. GOSL, “Response to ASJP Suggestions.”
94. GOSL, “Response to ASJP Suggestions.” See also Albrecht and Jackson, Securing Sierra Leone, 141.
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid.
97. Libra Advisory Group, “Access to Security & Justice Programme.”
98. DfID, Eliminating World Poverty.
99. Albrecht and Jackson, Securing Sierra Leone, 93.
100. For an analysis of how this occurs at the local level, see Albrecht, “Hybridisation in a Case of Diamond Theft”.
101. See Albrecht, “The Hybrid Authority of Sierra Leone’s Chiefs.”