MICROCON
MICROCON
is a five-year research programme funded by the European Commission,
which takes an innovative micro level, multidisciplinary approach to the study
of the conflict cycle.
Time Span
Five years: 1 January 2007 – 31 December 2010
Key Goals
The programme aims to promote understanding of
individual and group
interactions
leading to and resulting from
violent mass conflicts
, with the purpose of uncovering much-needed fundamentals for better informed domestic, regional and international conflict policy, which places individuals and groups at the centre of their interventions.
It takes an innovative
micro level, multidisciplinary
approach to conflict, and aims to go beyond merely reactive theorisations of conflict to look at the complete dynamics (across intensities, actors, triggers and effects) of violent mass conflicts.
Working Methods
Mainly
qualitative approaches following anthropological research methods have been
applied: household questionnaires, PRA tools, group discussion, expert & in-depth
interviews, group and personal network analysis, conflict and stakeholder
mappings.
The Role of UNU-EHS in MICROCON
As member of the MICROCON consortium UNU-EHS is
undertaking a research project on ‘Water related conflicts in the local context
in selected Sub-Saharan African countries’.
States, sub-national social groups, and
households compete over access to and distribution of water. The possibility of
conflicts at international, regional and local level regarding access to and
use of freshwater resources therefore poses a serious threat to both human
security and the security of states.
However, most conflicts of these types are
conducted non-violently. Experience shows that the danger of violent escalation
of water-related conflicts is biggest on the local (waterpoint) level. The
problem is not so much (the danger of) ‘water wars’ in the form of classical international
wars between states or even classical internal wars between governments and an
armed opposition, but rather localised violent conflict between water users in
a rural environment or new types of violence in the form of ‘water riots’ in
villages or urban settings (which does not exclude trans-national
repercussions).
Based on
four case studies in Botswana (desk research only) and Lesotho, Namibia and
Tanzania (field research), UNU-EHS pursues the following two objectives:
-
How
do ‚formal’ and
‚informal’ institutions shape (potential) violent and/or non-violent conflicts
in regards to water-related issues?
-
What
are the different strategies
developed by
individuals or group actors to control, enforce or secure their access
to
institutions and/or water resources?
-
Unlike the again and again bandied alarmistic scenario of international
water wars, experience shows that the danger of violent escalation of
water-related conflicts is biggest on the local level.
UNU-EHS' reserach project has pilot character, as it deliberately focus on the micro level and analyses different types of localised water-related violent conflicts, e.g. conflicts between different groups of water users and between water users on the one hand and state authorities and/or private corporations on the other. The regional focus of the project is on the arid and semi-arid regions of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Moreover, it focuses on the subjective dimension of local conflicts, the perceptions, world views, norms and motivations of the people on the ground who are directly involved in the (violent) conduct of conflict.
|Read more
-
The project examines cases of localised violent or violence-prone water-related conflicts. MICROCON aims to
analyse the structural causes and the motivations of actors that lead to the violent conduct of water-related conflicts in the local water point context; and
to aim at the development of recommendations for the prevention of violent escalation of such localised water-related conflicts.
By combining micro-level analysis and actor orientation in a bottom-up perspective the project intends to further develop the current state-of-the-art research that is focussed on the (inter)national level, structural conditions and institutions and carried out in a top-down perspective.
|Read more
