Articles & Publications
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten, Richard Marcantonio
- Abstract:
Post-war Sierra Leone has experienced a population explosion that has raised questions among rural farmers about the relationship between family size and poverty. Agricultural decline and the high cost of schooling are not prompting parents to articulate a desire for smaller families; rather, they highlight that the uncertainty around articulating the “right” number of children is unresolvable because the ability to send children to school is predicated on increasing agricultural outputs that…
- Date Published:
- 2021-03
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten
- Abstract:
Residents of Makeni, Sierra Leone narrate the chaos, uncertainty, and terror of their town’s occupation by rebels by speaking of time in ways substantively different than those used to mark ordinary times. Instead of “what happened” and “when,” narrators have created a mnemonic community emphasizing “who happened,” and maintain the sense of suspended time and hopelessness that define their story of abandonment by the government. This article shows that people explicitly denied the preeminence…
- Date Published:
- 2014-09
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten
- Abstract:
The implementation of child rights legislation in the African nation of Sierra Leone has revealed children articulating novel values for education and labor. Corporal punishment was used to reinforce for children the importance of schooling and uncompensated household labor to their development as people. With its legal banning, children are forming values that conflict with those held by elders and with rights doctrine itself. They differentiate between productive “work,” useful be…
- Date Published:
- 2018-04
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten, Adam Goguen
- Abstract:
The Ebola epidemic unfolded in radically divergent manners in two neighboring villages in Sierra Leone, with one recording 40 cases and 20 deaths and the other recording zero cases, though they are located only 100 meters apart. Presented with identical information about Ebola’s cause and modes of transmission, one chief reacted by attempting to shield his village from outside knowledge and influence, encouraging his people to continue their normal practices of care and communion, and the…
- Date Published:
- 2017-04
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten
- Abstract:
The 2012 national election laws in Sierra Leone addressed the campaign violence and discord experienced in previous elections with heavy restrictions on everyday freedoms such as movement, expression, and assembly. The sitting government requested the presence of international observer missions to legitimate the election as “democratic” in spite of these human rights restrictions. Rather than transforming local practices to conform with international norms, Sierra Leonean lawmakers…
- Date Published:
- 2016-12
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten
- Abstract:
Education was historically valued in Sierra Leone as a possession that conveyed and expressed elite status, with the revered, authoritative teacher being the gatekeeper. The erosion of teachers’ authority through government policies designed to universalize access to education has called into question the once-certain high status of the educated. With the future now ambiguous, students and teachers undertake “practices of uncertainty,” engaging in symbolic boundary work to disti…
- Date Published:
- 2015-01
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten, Richard Marcantonio
- Abstract:
Post-war Sierra Leone has experienced a population explosion that has raised questions among rural farmers about the relationship between family size and poverty. Agricultural decline and the high cost of schooling are not prompting parents to articulate a desire for smaller families; rather, they highlight that the uncertainty around articulating the “right” number of children is unresolvable because the ability to send children to school is predicated on increasing agricultural outputs that…
- Date Published:
- 2021
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten
- Abstract:
This article examines a case study from war-torn Sierra Leone in 1994, in which a rumor galvanized violent public action and only dissipated when a seemingly unrelated issue was resolved. I argue that the circulation of rumors can foment the emergence of political narratives focused on topics that are otherwise taboo, and creates the space to act on them without overtly disturbing the status quo. I analyze the content of interview material with residents of the town of Makeni and eight months…
- Date Published:
- 2014-01
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten
- Abstract:
This article uses interviews with former student activists in Sierra Leone to explore what ideals motivate students to participate in political action. In Sierra Leone, students used the military as a cover for their own democratic programme, initially by encouraging a coup that they wanted to partake in, later by joining the officer corps themselves. I challenge the notion that student interactions with the urban lumpenproletariat and ‘ militariat ’ serve as evidence for their desire to cloa…
- Date Published:
- 2009-09
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten
- Abstract:
This article analyzes the notion of “normal” post-war development in Makeni, northern Sierra Leone in light of the fact that local people, the national government, and NGOs appear to be at an impasse concerning agricultural practices. I argue that fundamentally different perspectives on what construes desirable post-war development are causing this deadlock. The government adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to make the country more attractive donors (and more re…
- Date Published:
- 2009-11
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten
- Abstract:
Civilians in Makeni, Sierra Leone, describe their relationship with the ex-combatants of the rebel RUF as a state of being “sensitized” to their presence. I argue that “sensitization” connotes civilians’ acceptance of ex-combatants living among them, while they refuse to incorporate ex-combatants into the social order. Civilians, although treating the war as a “state of exception,” refuse to grant ex-combatants the grace of belonging to this exceptional time. They question whether youth socia…
- Date Published:
- 2012-09
- Record Visibility:
- Public
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12
Article
- Author(s):
- Catherine Bolten
- Abstract:
The wages paid to local employees by international NGOs and the grants given to community organizations are an understudied aspect of the effect of aid on war-affected countries. In this article, I explore how wages and grants become part of social networks in Makeni, in northern Sierra Leone, and argue that cash infusions cause tension within networks and between payees and INGOs because organizations refuse to “inflate” wages and grants, and yet recipients suffer extreme poverty and support…
- Date Published:
- 2014-03
- Record Visibility:
- Public