Securing (in)security: relinking violence and the trade in in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Ann A. Laudati

Review of African Political Economy, 2016, vol. 43, issue 148, 190-205

Abstract: The handful of studies that exist linking illegal drugs and violence in Africa tend to focus on understanding the role of drugs in shaping armed conflict. The reported linkages made between the trade in cannabis sativa and the continuing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo are exemplars. Contemporary reports of cannabis use in the region have largely focused on two main concerns: the psychophysiological effects of drug use on conflict actors and the participation of cannabis within the war economy. According to these narratives, drugs and violence are seen to go together, destabilising society, creating insecurity, and spreading HIV. Drawing from four months of qualitative research on the cannabis trade in eastern DRC, this paper presents an alternative story of drug-related violence in the region. Namely, it argues that the dangers stemming from an entanglement with the drug are rather, as one informant aptly stated, the result of ‘security’.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2016.1179180

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