Roadblock politics — Peer Schouten

EPISODE SUMMARY
Dan Banik and Peer Schouten discuss the historical evolution of roadblocks and their current functions, how major multinational companies and aid organisations navigate through roadblocks in Africa and what this means for violence and state legitimacy.

EPISODE NOTES
In many parts of the African continent, there are so many roadblocks that it is indeed very hard to find a road that does not have one. But what is the point of having so many roadblocks that are often viewed by travellers to cause considerable inconvenience?

In a brilliant new book — Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa – Peer Schouten maps over a thousand roadblocks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, in order to document how communities, rebels, and state security forces forge resistance and power out of control over these narrow points of passage.