Broadly, the study examines the argument that education potentially contributes to violent conflict or, on the contrary, acts as a mediating factor in the reconstruction of divided or fragmented societies; indeed, as a driver for peace and unity. It looks at the case of Sierra Leone, a country emerging from a decade-long civil war (1991–2002). There are four aims to the study: <ul><li>(1) To examine, by drawing on a number of disciplines, the theoretical explanations of what puts societies at risk of violent conflict;</li><li>(2) Using these interdisciplinary perspectives, to identify the features of educational systems that are considered to be associated with or give rise to violent conflict;</li><li>(3) To examine which of these characteristics are present in post-conflict Sierra Leone; and</li><li>(4) Based on the findings, to formulate a number of general theoretical propositions about the characteristics of educational systems that might put society at risk of conflict.</li></ul> The research question for the study is: Which features of the educational system in Sierra Leone might put the country at risk of further conflict? Importantly, the research question is approached theoretically; a study attempting to demonstrate this solely empirically would not be feasible. The study adopts a robust interdisciplinary approach. It seeks explanations across the social sciences for the causes of violent conflict and identifies three theories that bear upon the key features that characterise many contemporary conflicts, i.e. ethnicity or cultural identities, status as a low-income country, and ‘fragile’ or failing states. The explanations revolve around the theories of: 1) ‘horizontal inequalities’ by Frances Stewart; 2) the ‘opportunity cost of rebellion’ by Paul Collier et al.; and 3) the role of state and ruling elites by Robert Bates. The study, then, together with an analysis of education and its relationship to conflict, creates an interdisciplinary theoretical and conceptual framework on the characteristics of educational systems associated with a risk of violent conflict. Methodologically, the study examines the educational system of post-conflict Sierra Leone as a case study, focusing on young people’s experiences, perceptions, and expectations of education. Three groups of young people with different educational experiences in Makeni city are selected as principal cases: (1) 15 students in a secondary school; (2) 15 students in technical and vocational training; and (3) 10 out-of-school informants. Additionally, 49 adult key informants were interviewed (among which 34 were ultimately analysed) and documentary analyses were conducted. The findings from the study reveal a number of features in the educational system in Sierra Leone (in areas such as access, curriculum, and governance) that the theoretical lens adopted in the study suggests as being associated with a risk of violent conflict. The analysis that follows seeks to further elucidate these features and recognise their complexity. The analysis is enriched by the perspectives and experiences of the beneficiaries of education who participated in the study. This sets it apart from other studies. The limitation of the study lies in the fact that it cannot demonstrate a causal relationship between the features of education and possible further violent conflict in Sierra Leone (a challenge most studies of this kind would face). The study does, however, offer a rich theoretical and conceptual framework and a robust set of theoretical propositions in relation to the question it poses. In contribution to the field and the growing literature on this topic, the study offers a theoretical and conceptual base for future research tackling the role of education in violent conflict and for building (and modifying) knowledge on the topic.

This study, which seeks to contribute to the shared-body of knowledge on media and war crimes jurisprudence, gauges the impact of the media’s coverage of the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) and Charles Taylor trials conducted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) on the functionality of civil society organizations (CSOs) in promoting transitional (post-conflict) justice and democratic legitimacy in Sierra Leone. The media’s impact is gauged by contextualizing the stimulus-response paradigm in the behavioral sciences. Thus, media contents are rationalized as stimuli and the perceptions of CSOs’ representatives on the media’s coverage of the trials are deemed to be their responses. The study adopts contents (framing) and discourse analyses and semi-structured interviews to analyse the publications of the selected media (For Di People, Standard Times and Awoko) in Sierra Leone. The responses to such contents are theoretically explained with the aid of the structured interpretative and post-modernistic response approaches to media contents. And, methodologically, CSOs’ representatives’ responses to the media’s contents are elicited by ethnographic surveys (group discussions) conducted across the country. The findings from the contents and discourse analyses, semi-structured interviews and ethnographic surveys are triangulated to establish how the media’s coverage of the two trials impacted CSOs’ representatives’ perceptions on post-conflict justice and democratic legitimacy in Sierra Leone. To test the validity and reliability of the findings from the ethnographic surveys, four hundred (400) questionnaires, one hundred (100) for each of the four regions (East, South, North and Western Area) of Sierra Leone, were administered to barristers, civil/public servants, civil society activists, media practitioners, students etc. The findings, which reflected the perceptions of people from large swathe of opinions in Sierra Leone, appeared to have dovetailed with those of the CSOs’ representatives across the country. The study established that the media’s coverage of the CDF trial appeared to have been tainted with ethno-regional prejudices, and seemed to be ‘a continuation of war by other means’. However, the focus groups perceived the media reporting as having a positive effect on the pursuit of post-conflict justice, good governance and democratic accountability in Sierra Leone. The coverage of the Charles Taylor trial appeared to have been devoid of ethno-regional prejudices, but, in the view of the CSOs, seemed to have been coloured by lenses of patriotism and nationalism.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Memoria para optar al título de Arquitecto

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This study examines and problematizes how the Resolution 1325 has impacted women's inclusion in two developing countries. The study focuses on how the resolution 1325 has affected and increased women's inclusion in peacebuilding since the implementation in Rwanda (2009) and Sierra Leone (2010). To analyse the results a theoretical framing is used, which is Empowerment theory and Feminist Approaches to Peacebuilding. This thesis uses a comparative literature method to compare the impacts in the two cases and critical reading is used while searching for material in e.g. scientific articles and in reports. Based on the theoretical framing and the material that are used in this thesis, the study concludes that Rwanda and Sierra Leone have experienced different results from the implementation of resolution 1325. This study concludes that the implementation of resolution 1325 in Rwanda has worked as a tool to push gender equality further in peace processes as in the parliament and in the security sector, alongside women's organizations and activists since 2009. The results in Sierra Leone concludes that the implementation of resolution 1325 has progressed the work within peacebuilding as the proportion of women has increased in peace processes and in the police and security-sector since 2010. However, the development in Rwanda had come further before the implementation of resolution 1325 and therefore the results differ in these countries.

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Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This thesis extends the literature on the trends and magnitude of health inequalities in the area of maternal and reproductive health services in Sierra Leone, and particular across sub-Saharan Africa. It attempted to provide a good understanding of, not only the determinants of maternal and reproductive healthcare use, but also factors that enable health inequalities to exist in Sierra Leone. This is an appropriate topic in population health studies as it aims to address important questions on the research agenda in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in a country with poor health outcomes such as Sierra Leone. A proper understanding of not only the coverage rates of population health outcomes but also the extent of health inequalities as well as the factors that contribute to these inequalities is crucial for any government. The thesis applied various techniques in the analysis of DHS data (from 2008 and 2013 rounds) in an attempt to answer the research questions.

My thesis is an ethnographic study of Sierra Leonean living in London. I examine the interrelationships between diasporic orientations and the specific locality in which people are living. As such, my research is at the intersection between literatures on African diasporas, and research on new immigration and diversity, two fields which I argue deal with the same ‘problem' – that of the incorporation of migrants into some form of nation-state identification. In my empirical chapters I explore Sierra Leoneans encounters with diversity in a range of places within London, and engage with Brah's (1996) conception of diaspora space, as well as recent work on the topic of super-diversity (Vertovec 2007) as a way to elucidate such these interactions. I focus on key sites within Sierra Leonean London – a popular street market, the religious spaces of a church and a mosque, and the temporary spaces used for the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Sierra Leonean independence. I explore how individuals manage the twin pressures of incorporation from both the UK and Sierra Leonean states, and how these pressures reconcile in efforts to create lives in the interstices of two cultural systems. I look at how a specific cultural heritage shapes their engagements with each other and with outsiders, and how encounters with others and the experience of life in London affect their relationship with their country of origin. The thesis argues that Sierra Leoneans living in London manage these pressures using a cultural imaginary rooted in postcoloniality – i.e. shaped by the enduring effects of colonialism and its aftermath. This legacy has resulted in a profound ambivalence towards both London and Sierra Leone, as poles of this relationship, with many Sierra Leoneans coming to see the diaspora as “home”: a productive ‘”third space” with resources and opportunities beyond that of their home country. The dependence of these diasporic spaces on the contributions of diverse ‘others'provides broader affiliations, that result in a less tightly-held national identity, with Pan-West-African and African identification, becoming increasingly salient.

This thesis is based on eighteen months' fieldwork in Tissana: a bustling multi-ethnic fishing town on Sierra Leone's southern coast. It tells the story of the successive waves of young migrants who, for several decades, have been arriving on the coast from rural areas seeking an alternative to the indentured labour conditions of a farming economy still shaped by the legacy of domestic slavery. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing post­‐war economy, and in an ecological context in which fish stocks are in treacherous decline, I explore the intersection between people's everyday struggles for economic survival and their taken-for-granted knowledge of the substance of the world within which those fragile livelihoods play out. In a region in which we have come to correlate ‘memory' with the collective scars of slavery and civil war, Tissana's older residents look back with nostalgia and remember the youthful energy, conspicuous consumption and seemingly easy ‘freedom' of their town's early boom years. In some respects, the pattern is familiar from accounts of resource rushes all across Africa: the convergence of large numbers of young strangers in an unfamiliar landscape far from the authority of village elders opened up a space in which a new kind of moral economy emerged. However, within just a few decades of its initial boom, the fluidity of Sierra Leone's fishing economy is already under intense pressure. Fish stocks have suffered a noticeable decline and, as catches become smaller and more erratic, people find themselves drawn once more into networks of dependency and reciprocity that offer their only viable hope of material security. A constant tension animating everyday life in Tissana is how people are able to work, through the strategic deployment of material gifts, to nurture the relationships that they rely upon for their subsistence, whilst simultaneously attempting to protect themselves from becoming entangled in other, less appealing social bonds. At its core, then, this is a work about the materiality of human relationships; of social bonds formed and lived under conditions of such stark economic uncertainty that, very often, ‘love' and ‘livelihoods' are difficult to disaggregate — and even more difficult to trust. Here relationships often have a peculiarly fleshy, ethnographically observable aspect. One can go a long way towards mapping the town's fluctuating networks of friendship, love, debt, and obligation simply by watching the gifts of fish exchanging hands on the wharf. The town also raises a quite particular set of problems for an anthropologist interested in the materiality of social life. I explore how the lived experience of poverty, and the anxiety of stretched livelihoods are entangled with quotidian discussions of blessings, swears, initiation societies, and ‘fetish' medicines: elements of social life that we might intuitively gloss as ‘ritual', but that are, in fact, integral to the everyday economic order. Here, my work builds on a long literature in Sierra Leonean ethnography. Anthropologists working in this region have often revealed how their interlocutors do not draw any sharp distinction between ‘material' and ‘immaterial' elements of the physical environment and the agencies that inhabit it (Ferme 2001; Tonkin 1979; Bellman 1984). My contribution to this literature is to explore how such apparently abstruse questions of im/materiality become relevant in people's lives through economic practice: through the everyday decisions people make, and the work they invest, in fishing, trading, and gift-exchange.