Hunting Game Raiding Politics in the Central African Republic

Northeastern Central African Republic - a vast space bordering Chad, Darfur, and South Sudan - is a quintessential 'stateless' space, where the government has little presence and armed actors operate freely. In this first ethnographic and historical study of Central African raiding, Louisa Lombard investigates practices of forceful acquisition, a distinctive political repertoire in which claims to social status are linked to the ability to take (from wild spaces, or from others) and are frequently overturned. People have developed raiding skills to survive and live in a stateless borderland for over 150 years. From the trans-Saharan slave trade, to colonial forced labour regimes, big game hunting and coercive conservation, to rebellion, raiding has flourished where people's status in relation to each other is unclear and where institutional guidance is absent. Hunting Game offers rich comparative insights into the vibrant, if not always salutary, role that forceful acquisition plays in the world today.

1. Introduction: force, status, and uncertainty in arts of acquisition; 2. Zariba contests and collaborations; 3. Manhunt: the dominance of acquisition in an unfortunate colony; 4. Big game hunting and regulatory sociality; 5. The limits of law in coercive conservation; 6. Camouflage skills; 7. Denunciation and liberty; 8. Rebellion: force and hopes for status and entitlement; 9. Conclusion: sovereignty and distribution amid forceful acquisition.

Louisa Lombard is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, Connecticut. Her research focuses on African borderlands, politics, violence, sovereignty, peace-building, and conservation. She is the author of State of Rebellion: Violence and Intervention in the Central African Republic (2016) and articles in journals such as Comparative Studies in Society and History, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, African Affairs, and the Political and Legal Anthropology Review.