Department of Political Science, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany.
Disasters. 2010 Apr;34 Suppl 2:S238-55. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7717.2010.01156.x. Epub 2010 Feb 2.
This paper examines practices of looting in the Somali war. Rather than being inspired primarily by economic objectives, lootings are complex and ambiguous social activities, which are embedded in daily practices and the political rhetoric of the war. In Somalia, looting activities have been driven by a broad range of motives, including military-strategic considerations and/or desire to revenge past atrocities and (perceived) injustices, as well as economic interests. Furthermore, the organisational structure, the performance of actions and the main targets of looters have differed widely. Based on an empirical analysis of different waves and phases of looting in the context of war and state decay in Somalia, the paper identifies five types of looting. Beyond a state-centred conceptualisation of order, the study reveals that looting is not an expression of political chaos, but rather is patterned by and rooted in local moral universes, which have been fundamentally transformed during the course of the violent conflicts in the country since the end of the 1970s.
本文考察了索马里战争中的劫掠行为。劫掠行为并非主要受经济目标驱动，而是复杂且模糊的社会活动，嵌入在日常实践和战争的政治言论中。在索马里，劫掠活动的动机多种多样，包括军事战略考虑和/或报复过去的暴行和（被认为的）不公正，以及经济利益。此外，劫掠者的组织结构、行动表现和主要目标也存在很大差异。本文基于对索马里战争和国家衰败背景下不同时期和阶段劫掠行为的实证分析，确定了五种类型的劫掠。除了以国家为中心的秩序概念，该研究表明，劫掠不是政治混乱的表现，而是由地方道德体系所塑造和根植的，这些体系在 20 世纪 70 年代末以来该国暴力冲突的过程中发生了根本转变。
