Shadow Soldiering

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Mynster Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Markets ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Global South ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Global Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Security Companies ◽  
Security Contractors

Contemporary warfare depends on private security contractors from countries in the Global South. In Sierra Leone, this dependency has produced emerging markets for private military and security companies (PMSCs) seeking to recruit cheap, military-experienced labor. This article explores how demobilized militia and soldiers in Sierra Leone negotiate categorical divides to make themselves employable for private security contracting in Iraq. Based on 19 months of fieldwork tracing militia soldiers as they move between shift ing security constellations, the article introduces the notion of “shadow soldiering” to explain the entanglements of public-private spheres and the blurring of boundaries between the visible and invisible that characterize these constellations. While scholarly work on PMSCs has increasingly highlighted the public-private interconnectedness, the article contributes an ethnographically informed perspective on how security contractors on the ground interpret such entanglements and how global security dynamics intersects with the local, everyday practices and processes that facilitate the supply of contractors.

scholarly journals Public or private? Blurring the lines through YouTube recruitment of military veterans by private security companies

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110479
Author(s):  
Jutta Joachim ◽  
Andrea Schneiker
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Corporate Identity ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Hiring Practices ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Security Companies ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
Privatization Of Security ◽  
The Military ◽  
Security Companies

Private security companies (PSCs) blur the lines between the public and the private sector through the provision of services to state militaries. Based on a multi-modal qualitative content analysis of YouTube recruitment videos aimed at veterans, we show how PSCs also challenge these boundaries through their hiring practices. By relating to veterans’ past as hero warriors and by envisioning their future as corporate soldiers, the companies appear as ‘like-military’ and as allowing ex-militaries to ‘continue their mission’. The findings contribute to scholarly debates about the privatization of security. They illustrate that similarly to the public sector, the private is also re-constituted through the military values that veterans introduce. The study adds to the literature on the visualization of war showing how video-based platforms allow security actors such as PSCs to construct their corporate identity in ambivalent ways by appealing to different emotional levels and by giving rise to different narratives.

scholarly journals Citizens’ Views of Private Security Guards in Hungary: A Preliminary Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
László Christián ◽  
Mahesh K. Nalla
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Markets ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Private Security ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Guards ◽  
The World

One of the features of emerging markets is the potential for an expanded role for the private police – a substitute crime prevention strategy in times of rapid decline in state funding of public police, has become commonplace in countries around the world. While much research has explored the citizens’ assessment of police officers, we know little about how the public perceives private security guards (PSGs). In this paper, we assess the citizens’ perceptions of private security guards. Drawing data from 800 citizens in Budapest, Hungary, we assess if factors such as citizens’ contact experience and their perceptions about the guards’ professionalism, imagery and civility influences their views about their obligation to obey private police officers. Findings of policy implications are discussed.

scholarly journals Governing-through-Harm and Public Goods Policing

2018 ◽  
Vol 679 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Berg ◽  
Clifford Shearing
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Public Safety ◽  
Global South ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Intervention Strategies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Police Forces

Among scholars of law and crime and practitioners of public safety, there is a pervasive view that only the public police can or should protect the public interest. Further, the prevailing perception is that the public police predominantly governs through crime—that is, acts on harms as detrimental to the public good. We argue that governing harm through crime is not always the most effective way of producing public safety and security and that the production of public safety is not limited to public police forces. An approach of governing-through-harm that uses a variety of noncrime strategies and private security agents as participants in public safety is often more effective—and more legitimate—than the predominant governing-through-crime approach. We reflect on case studies of noncrime intervention strategies from the Global South to bolster the case for decoupling the link between the public police and public goods. A new theoretical framing needs to be pursued.

Oceans and Landless Farms: Linking Southern and Northern Shadow Places of Industrial Livestock (1954–1975)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Floor Haalboom
Keyword(s):  
Animal Feed ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Global South ◽  
Humboldt Current ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Boom And Bust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global North

This article argues for more extensive attention by environmental historians to the role of agriculture and animals in twentieth-century industrialisation and globalisation. To contribute to this aim, this article focuses on the animal feed that enabled the rise of ‘factory farming’ and its ‘shadow places’, by analysing the history of fishmeal. The article links the story of feeding fish to pigs and chickens in one country in the global north (the Netherlands), to that of fishmeal producing countries in the global south (Peru, Chile and Angola in particular) from 1954 to 1975. Analysis of new source material about fishmeal consumption from this period shows that it saw a shift to fishmeal production in the global south rather than the global north, and a boom and bust in the global supply of fishmeal in general and its use in Dutch pigs and poultry farms in particular. Moreover, in different ways, the ocean, and production and consumption places of fishmeal functioned as shadow places of this commodity. The public health, ecological and social impacts of fishmeal – which were a consequence of its cheapness as a feed ingredient – were largely invisible on the other side of the world, until changes in the marine ecosystem of the Pacific Humboldt Current and the large fishmeal crisis of 1972–1973 suddenly changed this.

Police in Africa

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Democratic Transitions ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Self Perceptions ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Police Forces

State police forces in Africa are a curiously neglected subject of study, even within the framework of security issues and African states. This book brings together criminologists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, political scientists and others who have engaged with police forces across the continent and the publics with whom they interact to provide street-level perspectives from below and inside Africa’s police forces. The contributors consider historical trajectories and particular configurations of police power within wider political systems, then examine the ‘inside view’ of police forces as state institutions – the challenges, preoccupations, professional ethics and self-perceptions of police officers – and finally look at how African police officers go about their work in terms of everyday practices and engagements with the public.The studies span the continent, from South Africa to Sierra Leone, and illustrate similarities and differences in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone states, post-socialist, post-military and post-conflict contexts, and amid both centralizsation and devolution of policing powers, democratic transitions and new illiberal regimes, all the while keeping a strong ethnographic focus on police officers and their work.

scholarly journals Drivers and barriers to workplace-based HIV self-testing among high-risk men in Uganda: a qualitative study

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patience A. Muwanguzi ◽  
Robert C. Bollinger ◽  
Stuart C. Ray ◽  
LaRon E. Nelson ◽  
Noah Kiwanuka ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Hiv Testing ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Private Security Companies ◽  
Self Testing ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
Hiv Testing Services ◽  
Security Companies

Abstract Background Men in Sub-Saharan Africa are less engaged than women in accessing HIV testing and treatment and, consequently, experience higher HIV-related mortality. Reaching men with HIV testing services is challenging, thus, increasing the need for innovative ways to engage men with low access and those at higher risk. In this study, we explore men’s perceptions of drivers and barriers of workplace-based HIV self-testing in Uganda. Methods An exploratory study involving men working in private security companies employing more than 50 men in two districts, in central and western Uganda. Focus group discussions and key informant interviews were conducted. Data were analyzed using inductive content analysis. Results Forty-eight (48) men from eight private security companies participated in 5 focus group discussions and 17 key informant interviews. Of the 48 men, 14(29.2%) were ages 26–35 years. The majority 31(64.6%) were security guards. The drivers reported for workplace-based HIV self-testing included convenience, autonomy, positive influence from work colleagues, the need for alternative access for HIV testing services, incentives, and involvement of employers. The barriers reported were the prohibitive cost of HIV tests, stigma, lack of testing support, the fear of discrimination and isolation, and concerns around decreased work productivity in the event of a reactive self-test. Conclusions We recommend the involvement of employers in workplace-based HIV self-testing to encourage participation by employees. There is need for HIV self-testing support both during and after the testing process. Both employers and employees recommend the use of non-monetary incentives, and regular training about HIV self-testing to increase the uptake and acceptability of HIV testing services at the workplace.

Bubbles of Governance: Private Policing and the Law in Canada

2000 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
George S. Rigakos ◽  
David R. Greener
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Private Governance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
Private Organization ◽  
Security Personnel ◽  
Legal Context ◽  
Private Policing

AbstractIn the last three decades, the public-private organization of policing in Canada has undergone significant change. It is now common sociological knowledge that there has been formidable growth in private security alongside evolving forms of private governance. These changing social relations have resulted in the prominence of actuarial practices and agents to enforce them. This paper examines how the Canadian socio-legal context affects and is affected by both private security and new, more aggressive, ‘parapolicing’ organizations. We update the state of knowledge on the powers of private security personnel by examiningCriminal Codeprovisions in apost-Charterlegal environment, comparing provincial trespass Acts, and analyzing how one aggressive ‘Law Enforcement Company’ as well as other private security firms, more generally, are both enabled and constrained by these legal provisions.

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