2026-06-09T07:17:19+02:00 https://library.wur.nl/oai

oai:library.wur.nl:wurpubs/405971 2026-03-31

urn:nbn:nl:ui:32-405971 2026-03-31 urn:nbn:nl:ui:32-405971/mods Peasant grievance and insurgencyin sierra leone: judicial serfdom as a driver of conflict Mokuwa E. 341654698 0000000393404620 aut Voors M.J. 333840917 0000-0001-5907-3253 0000000394878529 aut Bulte E.H. 141315245 0000-0001-9491-5268 0000000047078199 aut Richards P. 072160462 0000-0001-5813-0228 0000000114746944 aut text info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2011 10.1093/afraf/adr019 2-s2.0-79959426209 000292045900001 en Was the civil war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002) fought for diamonds, or was it a peasant insurgency motivated by agrarian grievances? The evidence on both sides is less than conclusive. This article scrutinizes the peasant insurgency argument via a more rigorous methodology. Hypotheses concerning intra-peasant tensions over marriage and farm labour are derived from an examination of the anthropological literature. These are tested using econometric tools, applied to data from a randomized survey of 2,239 households in 178 villages surrounding the Gola Forest in eastern and southern Sierra Leone, the cradle of the war. It is shown that a decade after the war ended peasant disputes over marriage continue to mark out an incipient class divide in isolated rural communities, as evidenced by cases presented in local courts and family moots. Disputes mainly involve a village elder suing a young man with weak social protection. Fines are exceptionally high, and mostly paid off in the form of coerced farm labour. It is argued that grievance over this long-standing form of labour exploitation fed insurgency, and contributed to the otherwise puzzlingly high levels of peasant-upon-peasant violence associated with the war in Sierra Leone. Technology and Agrarian Development Development Economics Leerstoelgroep Technologie en agrarische ontwikkeling Ontwikkelingseconomie African Affairs 110 440 339 366 00019909 urn:nbn:nl:ui:32-405971/obj 2026-03-31 http://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/RestrictedAccess