Table of Contents

1. Making Sense of CAR: An Introduction - Louisa Lombard and Tatiana Carayannis 2. CAR's History: The Past of a Tense Present - Stephen W. Smith 3. Being Rich, Being Poor: Wealth and Fear in the Central African Republic - Roland Marchal 4. Local Dynamics in the PK5 District of Bangui - Faouzi Kilembe 5. The Elite's Road to Riches in a Poor Country - Stephen W. Smith 6. A Multifaceted Business: Diamonds in the Central African Republic - Ned Dalby 7. The Autonomous Zone Conundrum: Armed Conservation and Rebellion in North-Eastern CAR - Louisa Lombard 8. CAR and the Regional (Dis)order - Roland Marchal 9. Pathologies of Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding in CAR - Nathaniel Olin 10. From Being Forgotten to Being Ignored: International Humanitarian Interventions in the Central African Republic - Enrica Picco 11. CAR's Southern Identity: Congo, CAR, and International Justice - Tatiana Carayannis 12. In Unclaimed Land: The Lord's Resistance Army in CAR - Ledio Cakaj 13. A Central African Elite Perspective on the Struggles of the Central African Republic - Laurence D. Wohlers 14. A Concluding Note on the Failure and Future of Peacebuilding in CAR - Tatiana Carayannis and Louisa Lombard

Promotional Information

A groundbreaking book that fundamentally opens the Central African Republic to African policymakers and scholars.

About the Author

Tatiana Carayannis is deputy director of the Social Science Research Council’s Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum. She also directs the SSRC China-Africa Knowledge Project and is a research director of the LSE-based consortium, the Justice and Security Research Programme. A political scientist and seasoned field researcher, she is widely published on political mobilization and rebel governance, and UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding in Central Africa, particularly the DRC. She co-authored UN Voices: The Struggle for Development and Social Justice (2005) with Thomas G. Weiss, Louis Emmerij, and Richard Jolly, and is currently completing her next book, Pioneers of Peacekeeping: ONUC, 1960-1964. Louisa Lombard is an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale University. She has worked in CAR as a field consultant to several international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Small Arms Survey, Refugees International and the World Bank, in addition to her academic research. She is currently finishing two books about the country, one an ethnographic and historical account of the ‘stateless’ east, and the other an anthropological take on war and rebellion over the past decade.

Reviews

[T]his book is a much-needed contribution to our understanding of the CAR crisis.
*African Affairs*

This is the essential book on CAR. Tatiana Carayannis and Louisa Lombard have assembled the scholars and analysts who know most about this important but under-researched country, and have produced the authoritative volume on its history, society and politics.
*Alex de Waal, author of Darfur and Advocacy in Conflict*

Bringing together the most prominent experts, this book provides a unique, compelling and definitive analysis of the deeply rooted political crisis in the CAR. With no issue left untouched, it is essential reading for anyone interested in, or dealing with the current conflict.
*Koen Vlassenroot, Ghent University*

Carayannis and Lombard definitively depict what Africans call "the heart of the continent" not as a blank spot on colonial maps, nor as an aberrant absence or failure of contemporary national and international governance, but rather as a complex "hive" of geopolitical, cultural and economic rivalries and alliances key to Africa's prosperity and stability in coming decades. It is a boldly executed and timely corrective to much recent media and policy analysis on civil conflict and prospects for sustainable peace in the Central African Republic.
*Rebecca Hardin, University of Michigan*