Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa

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Book

Title:	Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa
Author:	Schouten, Peer
Year:	2022
Pages:	300
Language:	English
City of publisher:	Cambridge, Great Britain
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISBN:	9781108625050
Geographic terms:	Congo (Democratic Republic of) Central African Republic Central Africa
Subjects:	roads power violence
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108625050
Abstract:	There are so many roadblocks in Central Africa that it is hard to find a road that does not have one. Based on research in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR), Peer Schouten maps more than a thousand of these roadblocks to show how communities, rebels and state security forces forge resistance and power out of control over these narrow points of passage. Schouten reveals the connections between these roadblocks in Central Africa and global supply chains, tracking the flow of multinational corporations and UN agencies alike through them, to show how they encapsulate a form of power, which thrives under conditions of supply chain capitalism. In doing so, he develops a new lens through which to understand what drives state formation and conflict in the region, offering a radical alternative to explanations that foreground control over minerals, territory or population as key drivers of Central Africa's violent history.