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Security and conflict
Introduction
This article is an exploration and analysis of the perceptions and motivations of fighters, high-ranking military leaders and civilian dependants associated with the ethnic Hutu-dominated rebel group the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), currently fighting in the eastern territories of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I focus on how members of the FDLR perceive their own situation in the context of ongoing conflict and how they incentivize and justify acts of violence. I argue that, if we are to achieve a deeper understanding of the motives behind violence in conflict zones, we must understand the structural context, as well as the individual life stories, background and life strategies, of those engaged in perpetrating violence.
The article is informed by fifteen months of research conducted between 2010 and 2012 in the South Kivu province of the Eastern Congo. Aspects of the fieldwork were carried out in a geographically remote and isolated military camp controlled by the FDLR, five days' trek from the nearest town. Here I conducted interviews and participant observation among active fighters and their family members to gain insight into the membership and organization of the group. Through analysis of the ethnographic data, I discovered that most FDLR members regarded themselves as victims, but at the same time they believed that they were fighting for a good cause. Hence they often identified themselves simultaneously as victims and perpetrators. Violence among those fighters I interviewed was not just a political or military tactic; it was also a cultural and personal act that articulates with a cosmology that links violence with personal agency. If we seek to understand the behaviour of combatants and their motives for violence in war, we must begin by examining the political context and the conditions under which they fight. By engaging with actors who perpetrate violence, we can further achieve a broader understanding of individual life strategies in conflict situations, and of how it is that violence sustains itself. A basic premise of anthropological enquiry is that by understanding the everyday lives and world views of the people we study, we can obtain a more nuanced appreciation of their actions. People adopt multiple life strategies to make sense of and negotiate their life...