Communication et Violences au Tchad: Le cas du Moyen-Chari et du Guera (1900-2010)

Communication and Violence in Chad : the case of Moyen-Chari and the Guera (1900-2010)

The political history of Chad is characterized by a series of violent crises. From slave raiding  to colonization to multiple civil wars, the population of Chad, and in particularly the people from the Guéra and the Moyen Chari region, were deeply affected. Both regions have a specific position in colonial and post-colonial politics’ respectively with regards to the creation of infrastructures of communication and with regards to rebellions formed against the State. The creation of roads, in the colonial period, for strategic and economic purposes, provoked extraordinary violence towards the local population, for instance with regards to the recruitment of manual labour. The effects of forced labour for the construction of the road infrastructure are  still vividly remembered. After independence, to repress the peasant revolts and armed rebellions, the battle for access to communication was integrated in military strategies and continued to play a role in the persisting violence experienced by the people. Recently new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) were introduced in the region. They played an important role in the organization of the latest rebellions, but also in oppression of the population. New ICTs therefore introduce new layers of violence in these regions. In this theses all these layers of violence are analysed in relation to each other and it is questioned how these help interpret today’s social fabric in the Guéra and Moyen-Chari.

Main methods used: oral histories, life histories, personal archives, colonial (military) archives, literature review.

CTD publications by Abdoulaye Adoum Souleymane:

Books:

• Souleymane, A. A. (2017), Communication et Violences au Tchad. Le cas du Moyen-Chari et du Guera (1900-2010), Leiden University : doctoral dissertation.

Papers:

• Souleymane, A. A., ‘Des récits historiques au détour des violences au Tchad’, CTD conference, N’Djaména, 25-28 October 2017.
• Souleymane, A. A., ‘Qui ont écrit l’histoire du Tchad ?’, Workshop: Alternative histories from Central Africa, Leiden University, 3 July 2017.

Blogs:

• Blog for The Broker (with Jonna Both): Conflicts connected and disconnected: where do we place the problem of governance in Chad?