Cows, Charcoal, and Cocaine: Al-Shabaab’s Criminal Activities in the Horn of Africa

Petrich, Katharine

doi:10.1080/1057610x.2019.1678873

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Katharine, foreign outsider: Talking to terrorists and traffickers: fieldwork in Kenya and Colombia Katharine's project examined the intersection of crime and terrorism, how the activity and actors influenced each other, and how those illicit networks wove through local communities (Petrich, 2019). Katharine used two qualitative case studies-a historical case (Colombia) and a contemporary, "live" case (Kenya)-to contextualise a desk-based assessment of international law and cooperation efforts to disrupt the crime-terror nexus (Petrich, 2022). Together, the cases offered geographic and temporal diversity and covered a broad range of both terrorist and criminal activity.…”

Section: Rapid Ethnography As a Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leveraging identity to overcome temporal and financial limitations in rapid ethnography in criminological research

Aqil

Petrich

Gundur

2023

Journal of Criminology

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With limited time and funding, scholars who deploy qualitative methodologies to examine deviance and criminogenic contexts, such as ethnography, must leverage sources of capital which reduce time-arcs and costs needed for qualitative research. Traditional ethnographic projects require both significant time and funding; accordingly, several authors have indicated the utility of “rapid ethnographies,” which require less time in the field and funding. By reflecting on three rapid ethnographies, we show how identity is simultaneously a property that informs how research unfolds and a capital that can be leveraged to compensate for temporal and financial deficits. In short, we show that rapid ethnography can be conducted ethically and that identity can counterbalance deficits in monetary and temporal capital when identity is carefully considered in the pre-planning and execution of a rapid ethnographic project.

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Section: Rapid Ethnography As a Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leveraging identity to overcome temporal and financial limitations in rapid ethnography in criminological research

Aqil

Petrich

Gundur

2023

Journal of Criminology

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“…For instance, Al-Shabaab has used the informal charcoal trade as a funding mechanism and recruitment tool. 32 Despite the UN Security Council's longstanding ban on charcoal trading in Somalia (UNSC S/RES/2607, 2021), regional actors continue to struggle with interdicting and disrupting the illicit trade networks that underpin it. This shift represents a growing threat to human security in the region, which is already precarious owing to environmental scarcity as well as the impact of cross-border incursions by Al-Shabaab, remnants of the Lord's Resistance Army, and other NSAGs.…”

Section: Security Regionalism In East Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Regionalism beyond state-centrism: African regionalism in comparative perspective

Grant

Issa

Söderbaum

et al. 2022

International Journal

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Over the past few decades, regions and regional institutions have gained increased attention in both scholarly literature and policy debates. A fundamental weakness in both debates, however, is the simplified focus on state actors and the official goals and policies of regional international organizations and inter-state frameworks. This article addresses this extant weakness by opening up for a more diverse empirical reality. By drawing on the new regionalism approach and two illustrative, comparative case studies from West Africa and East Africa, we offer new insights about how state and non-state actors interact in both formal and informal domains in order to produce variegated logics of regionalism that are poorly described by other theoretical perspectives. The article concludes by assessing the implications for theory and future research on regionalism in Africa and in other regions.

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“…On the one hand, violent extremists can alter the environment within which they operate. For instance, the Somali jihadist movement Al Shabaab has been using the illegal charcoal trade to fund its illegal activities for several years, despite the practice being banned by the government since 1969 (Petrich, 2019). This activity is believed to have led to land degradation and deforestation, which have made populations more vulnerable and exerted pressure on livelihoods (UNDP, 2020).…”

Section: The Impact Of Violent Extremism On Ecosystems and Vulnerabil...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change and Violent Extremism in North Africa

Bourekba

2021

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As climate change intensifies in many parts of the world, more and more policymakers are concerned with its effects on human security and violence. From Lake Chad to the Philippines, including Afghanistan and Syria, some violent extremist (VE) groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State exploit crises and conflicts resulting from environmental stress to recruit more followers, expand their influence and even gain territorial control. In such cases, climate change may be described as a “risk multiplier” that exacerbates a number of conflict drivers. Against this backdrop, this case study looks at the relationship between climate change and violent extremism in North Africa, and more specifically the Maghreb countries Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, which are all affected by climate change and violent extremism. There are three justifications for this thematic and geographical focus. Firstly, these countries are affected by climate change in multiple ways: water scarcity, temperature variations and desertification are only a few examples of the numerous cross- border impacts of climate change in this region. Secondly, these three countries have been and remain affected by the activity of violent extremist groups such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Islamic State organisation (IS) and their respective affiliated groups. Algeria endured a civil war from 1991 to 2002 in which Islamist groups opposed the government, while Morocco and Tunisia have been the targets of multiple terrorist attacks by jihadist individuals and organisations. Thirdly, the connection between climate change and violent extremism has received much less attention in the literature than other climate-related security risks. Although empirical research has not evidenced a direct relationship between climate change and violent extremism, there is a need to examine the ways they may feed each other or least intersect in the context of North African countries. Hence, this study concentrates on the ways violent extremism can reinforce vulnerability to the effects of climate change and on the potential effects of climate change on vulnerability to violent extremism. While most of the existing research on the interplay between climate change and violent extremism concentrates on terrorist organisations (Asaka, 2021; Nett and Rüttinger, 2016; Renard, 2008), this case study focuses on the conditions, drivers and patterns that can lead individuals to join such groups in North Africa. In other words, it looks at the way climate change can exacerbate a series of factors that are believed to lead to violent radicalisation – “a personal process in which individuals adopt extreme political, social, and/or religious ideals and aspirations, and where the attainment of particular goals justifies the use of indiscriminate violence” (Wilner and Dubouloz, 2010: 38). This approach is needed not only to anticipate how climate change could possibly affect violent extremism in the medium and long run but also to determine whether and how the policy responses to both phenomena should intersect in the near future. Does climate change affect the patterns of violent extremism in North Africa? If so, how do these phenomena interact in this region? To answer these questions, the case study paper first gives an overview of the threat posed by violent extremism in the countries of study and examines the drivers and factors that are believed to lead to violent extremism in North Africa. Secondly, it discusses how these drivers could be affected by the effects of climate change on resources, livelihoods, mobility and other factors. Finally, an attempt is made to understand the possible interactions between climate change and violent extremism in the future and the implications for policymaking.

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Cows, Charcoal, and Cocaine: Al-Shabaab’s Criminal Activities in the Horn of Africa

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Leveraging identity to overcome temporal and financial limitations in rapid ethnography in criminological research

Leveraging identity to overcome temporal and financial limitations in rapid ethnography in criminological research

Regionalism beyond state-centrism: African regionalism in comparative perspective

Climate Change and Violent Extremism in North Africa

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