Between Ex-Combatization and Opportunities for Peace: The Double-Edged Qualities of Motorcycle-Taxi Driving in Urban Postwar Sierra Leone

Abstract

Commercial motorcycle-taxi driving in urban postwar Sierra Leone has been praised as an example of successful self-reintegration, invented and organized by ex-combatants themselves, and as a new form of social capital, providing starting points for community-driven development. This article, however, draws attention to the double-edgedness of bike riding's consequences and potentials. At the individual level, bike riding indeed offers a livelihood, or at least a survival strategy, but it simultaneously leads into the social dead end of ex-combatization—of being socially marked as an ex-combatant. At the collective or structural level, bike riders' associations may offer local capacities for the promotion of peaceful development—or for the mobilization of ex-combatized riders by political actors seeking to intimidate the electorate.