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STATE POLICING AND INVISIBLE FORCES IN MOZAMBIQUE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2014

Helene Maria Kyed
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Abstract

This article explores how the state police in Mozambique tried to (re)encroach upon a former war zone and what their methods implied for state authority more generally. Post-war reform efforts to professionalize the police in accordance with the rule of law and human rights have had apparently paradoxical results. This is in part because efforts to constitute state authority have relied on both embracing and taming ‘tradition’ as an alternative domain of authority, order and law. Ethnographic fieldwork at police stations shows that the police increasingly handle witchcraft cases and spiritual problems. This, the article argues, does not only reflect a tension between local/customary and state/legal notions of order and justice. Equally significant is the existence of partial sovereignties. A spiritual idiom of power and evildoing constitutes an alternative articulation of sovereignty due to the capacity of invisible forces to give and take life. This is an idiom mastered by chiefs and healers. Police officers engage with invisible forces to gain popular legitimacy and manifest state power, and yet they never manage to fully master those forces. Consequently, state police authority remains uncertain, and must be continually reinforced by enacting hierarchies and jurisdictional boundaries and by using force.

Résumé

Cet article explore la manière dont la police d’État au Mozambique a tenté de faire une (nouvelle) incursion dans une ancienne zone de combat et, plus généralement, les implications de ce mode d'action pour l'autorité de l'État. Les efforts de réforme engagés après guerre pour professionnaliser la police dans le respect de l'autorité de la loi et des droits humains ont apparemment eu des résultats paradoxaux. Ceci tient en partie au fait que les efforts de constituer une autorité d’État se sont fondés sur l'acceptation et la maîtrise de la « tradition » comme domaine alternatif de l'autorité, de l'ordre et de la loi. Des travaux ethnographiques menés dans les commissariats de police montrent que la police traite un nombre croissant de cas de sorcellerie et de problèmes spirituels. L'article soutient que ceci ne reflète pas seulement une tension entre les notions locales/coutumières et étatiques/légales de l'ordre et de la justice. L'existence de souverainetés partielles est tout aussi importante. Un idiome spirituel du pouvoir et du mal constitue une articulation alternative de la souveraineté due à la capacité de forces invisibles à donner et à ôter la vie. C'est un idiome que maîtrisent les chefs et les guérisseurs. Les policiers invoquent des forces invisibles pour gagner une popularité populaire et manifester le pouvoir de l'État, sans pour autant parvenir à pleinement maîtriser ces forces. En conséquence, l'autorité de la police d’État demeure incertaine et a constamment besoin d’être renforcée en édictant des hiérarchies et des frontières juridictionnelles, et en usant de la force.

Type
Policing communities
Information
Africa , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , August 2014 , pp. 424 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2014 

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