CIAO DATE: 9/07
Culture and Conflict: Volume 55 (Fall 2004)
In the case of the West African conflict, which four states have been enduring for thirteen years, deconstructing the « realist » descriptions of a State war means taking interest in its trans-border spaces, in the ethnical and land ownership interplay, and in the changing sociology of war groups. On the contrary, moulding the concept of a "nomadic war" means following the relatively autonomous mechanisms of conflict spreading, insisting on the transformation of the "societies at war", rediscovering other autochthon political authorities such as communities, and recalling the pre-conflict "violence continuum" dynamic and the permanent political changes that occur during war. In this terrible politological laboratory, the author restores a meaning to the actions of nomadic groups considered as lifestyles, or body and violence management, and, in these never ending war systems, he restores a meaning to other conceptions of the « political ».