A Bazooka does not Cure People

A Bazooka does not Cure People

Commentary by Janpeter Schilling (University of Koblenz-Landau): Why war rhetoric in the time of the coronavirus pandemic is not only wrong, but dangerous

A “bazooka” is what the German Federal Minister of Finance, Olaf Scholz, recently called an aid package to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus. In the same press conference he later mentioned “small arms”, which would also be ready to fight the virus. For the otherwise rather unemotional Scholz, this is an unusual choice of words. Early on in the corona crisis, French President Emmanuel Macron stated “We are at war“. Donald Trump, the self-appointed US “Wartime President” even speaks of “our big war“. Why are important politicians using such a martial vocabulary in their responses to the corona pandemic? And is this okay?

Read more

Framing “land grabbing”: How the hype has been constructed

Framing “land grabbing”: How the hype has been constructed

by Jan Sändig, SFB 923, University of Tübingen

Land grabbing has been widely discussed in recent years. It seems quite evident why: Corporate investment in farmland has increased significantly and severely impacted many local communities. But this is only one reason why land grabbing has become a prominent topic. As I discuss in this article, it has also been “successfully” made visible by activists.

Read more

Framing identity in contestations over land in post-repatriation settings: The case of southern Burundi

Framing identity in contestations over land in post-repatriation settings: The case of southern Burundi

by Rosine Tchatchoua-Djomo, Leiden University, the Netherlands

The shift from violence to peace in Burundi has been marked by heavy contestations over land as a result of mass displacement and repatriation (see Kamungi, Oketch & Huggins, 2005). To facilitate policy-making, these land disputes have been framed by different (inter-)national actors as opposing two major camps: repatriates vs occupants. In this dichotomist representation, repatriates refer mainly to former Hutu civilians who fled mass violence perpetrated by former Tutsi-dominated ruling regimes; while occupants involve civilians who took over refugees’ land in their prolonged absence. Yet, these land disputes are much more complex than that. Read more