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November 22, 2005

Marc Sommers – Associate Research Professor of Humanitarian Studies

As the sole anthropologist on the Fletcher School faculty, Marc Sommers investigates the social and cultural nuances of international development and conflict – and his resulting discoveries are often surprising and thought-provoking. He has done research, evaluation, and policy analysis in 20 war-affected countries in Africa, Europe and Latin America, with a strong focus on children and youth at risk, conflict and education.

While interviewing Sierra Leonean refugees affected by the “Operation No Living Thing” attack on Freetown in 1999, Sommers made an interesting discovery. He recalls that the refugees “started telling me about Tupac’s music in Freetown, and how it was so much a part of the attack. I’ve been looking at this issue ever since.”

His subsequent research, funded by a grant from the Mellon-MIT Program on NGOs and Forced Migration, found that Shakur’s music, Stallone’s Rambo movies, Bob Marley’s lyrics and other western cultural iconography were employed as integral recruiting tools and incitements to violence in Sierra Leone’s rebel training camps. The ongoing project will ultimately look at the role played by popular culture during that country’s civil war, particularly with reference to military strategy and tactics, and in the lives of post-war youth. Sommers has also received support from the Ford, Rotary, and H.F. Guggenheim Foundations, as well as the Social Science Research Council, for other research work.

Along with his research on popular culture, Sommers’ interest in youth in conflict zones is also reflected in his recently completed book, which will be published in early 2006. Sponsored by UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning, Islands of Education: Schooling, Civil War, and the Southern Sudanese (1983-2004) is an exploration of the devastating effects civil war has had on education for Southern Sudanese.

“It was the worst educational situation I had ever seen. For some areas, it was as if I had been asked to write about something that didn’t exist,” Sommers says. “Nothing on the subject has ever been written in a comprehensive way. It’s so relevant to what’s going on now.”

Describing the sites he visited in the course of his research – including devastated southern Sudanese villages, displaced-person camps in Khartoum, and refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda with high concentrations of southern Sudanese refugees – Sommers recalls the utter lack of educational coordination. Moreover, in some areas of southern Sudan, less than one percent of school-age children receive an education, while those that do are limited by a lack of supplies and traumatized by the endless cycle of destruction wrought by war. Despite these obstacles, however, Sommers encountered an incredible amount of hope among Sudanese trying to provide education – and a sense of normalcy – to these children and youth.

“I’m excited because this topic is pertinent, but it’s also an extraordinary story,” he says. “The southern Sudanese are among the least educated people in the world, through no fault of their own, but they’re also extraordinarily resilient and perceptive people.”

Sommers added that he is “really looking forward to getting the book out and into the hands of decision makers,” whether in the new Sudanese government, local and international development agencies, or the general public, in the hopes it will positively affect educational policy.

Sommers received his Ph.D. in Anthropology, with a concentration in development anthropology, from Boston University. He has focused on youth in conflict and displacement issues since completing his dissertation on refugees from Burundi who went into hiding in Tanzania. He later turned these ideas into his first book, Fear in Bongoland: Burundi Refugees in Urban Tanzania, which won the Margaret Mead Award in 2003.

His other current projects include evaluating a Burundian conflict negotiation training program emphasizing non-elite participation, writing a literature review on youth and conflict, co-authoring a toolkit for designing marginalized urban youth programs in Africa, revising an article on the right to work among Sierra Leonean refugees, and drafting a book chapter on education and conflict for the U.S. Institute of Peace. Sommers will also contribute to an upcoming World Bank book focusing on men and development. His chapter, “Fearing Africa’s Young Men: Male Youth, Conflict, Urbanization, and the Case of Rwanda,” investigates the negative perceptions of male combatants and the obstacles they face in post-conflict society.

“Youth in war are considered engines of destruction and threats to peacebuilding,” Sommers says. “While things are beginning to change, their incredible positive energy, resilience, creativity, and resourcefulness are still too often overlooked.”

Posted by jessica at November 22, 2005 09:37 AM