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In many countries in the Global North, interventions in deprived neighbourhoods have attempted to tackle poverty by spatially deconcentrating it. This has commonly been done through housing restructuring programmes in areas of social housing. Supported by the ‘neighbourhood effects’ thesis, such interventions promote the diversification of housing tenures and housing typologies, based on the idea that a wider mix will result in increased opportunities of interaction across housing tenures and in local social networks becoming more heterogeneous. Using data from interviews, surveys and participant observation in meetings and events organised by local residents in North Peckham, an area in South London which in the 1990s and beginning of 2000s was the site of a large-scale housing restructuring programme, this chapter explores the expectations and experiences of neighbouring of long-term and newer arrival social housing tenants. This chapter shows that their different experiences of the neighbourhood and of physical and social change, as well as their diverging socio-economic characteristics – long-term residents tended to be older and retired while newer residents tended to have more complex needs – highly influenced perceptions of neighbourly relations and the significance attached to them. Despite finding high levels of neighbourly interaction and assistance, it also shows that attitudes and expectations towards neighbours were marked by a sense of nostalgia among long-term social tenants, stigma due to the area’s past and towards newer social tenants and by feelings of alienation due to the perceived residualisation of the social housing tenure and increased housing unaffordability.

On December 24, 1989, an armed insurrection began in Liberia. Charles Taylor, a former government official, led a rebel force, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), into the north-eastern Nimba County. A breakaway faction, the Independent National Patriotic Front (INPFL), led by Prince Yormie Johnson gained control of central Monrovia – the capital – and killed the President Samuel Doe. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intervened in August 1990, sending monitoring troops (the ECOWAS Military Observer Group, ECOMOG), and convened a national conference which elected an Interim Government of National Unity. In October 1990, ECOMOG established a neutral zone in Monrovia where Dr. Amos Sawyer was installed as Interim President in November. Various different factions and opposition groups were formed and clashes between the rebel groups and the Liberian army continued.

Within the theoretical context of human security, this United Nations (UN) three‐year research project examines the causes and effects of conflicts in the arid and semi‐arid lands of Northern Kenya. The purpose of this paper is to address the human security concerns arising out of conflict, displacement, migration and poverty. The people who live in the area are mainly nomadic pastoralists.

A review of previous empirical research and ongoing field studies are used to examine four problem areas: cattle rustling, proliferation of small arms, competition over scarce resources and conflict between refugees and local communities.

Seeking access to water and green pastures, the nomads generally follow their cattle across the region, and their movement is not confined to Kenya alone. They cross and re‐cross international boundaries to and from Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda resulting in conflicts over water and pasture. Resource competition in a fragile economy has had grave consequences for the economic security of families and internally displaced people.

The North Rift and North Eastern regions of Kenya are the most underdeveloped area of the country and suffer from a high level of human insecurity, with more than three‐quarters of the population living below the poverty line. This UN project seeks an empirical understanding of the causes of conflict and ways to build the capacity of a vulnerable population to gain both freedom from fear and freedom from want.

This chapter reviews the conceptual developments in neighbour studies, charting the shift and bringing together older work on the ‘distance-closeness’ dynamic of neighbour relations with newer ‘equality of neighbours’ approaches. It seeks to empirically extend the sociology of neighbours through an analysis of the experiential narratives of neighbours living in contexts of urban multiculture in the United Kingdom. Drawing on two previous studies of urban multicultural social life and a small street study of neighbours in London, this chapter explores the everyday ‘publicness’ of the neighbour and examines the ways in which recent work on social infrastructure can be productively applied to neighbour relations. This chapter concludes that where cultural and social difference is a very ordinary – although not necessarily easy – experience, neighbour relations offer the potential to work as radical sites of pragmatic multiculturalism.

This paper aims to examine the socio-political factors and the influence of spatial reconfiguration and transformation orchestrated by the forceful migration of Bororo herdsmen – a nomadic ethnic group from the Central African Republic into east Cameroon where they are now subsistent farmers. This livelihood transition strategy led to conflict and competition over natural resources with the local inhabitants.

The study draws from ethnographic interviews and participant observation involving security officials and international relief agencies alongside their implementing partners. Data abducted from various stakeholders were further complemented by reports produced by various humanitarian agencies and desk research – evaluation and reinterpretation of what others have written on pastoral peoples.

The paper suggests that humanitarian agencies be aware of “transnational borderland identities” by considering the specificity of particular borderland regions-isolation, underdevelopment and prone to conflict in crises of forced migration. They further need to move from a spatialized “refugee-centric” approach to the conversion of refugee relief into local development projects for refugee hosting areas.

While the problem of resource use conflict caused by the influx of refugees might be local, it highlights regional and global security concerns and articulates the growing recognition of political and environmental factors for national and international security.

The study articulates the need to shift from a spatialized “refugee-centric” regime that directs attention only to one category of social actors in an emergency situation to a more integrative assistance programme so as to erase the fake division of identities as well as to acknowledge the importance of a “border identity” for a more peaceful development aimed at achieving better social interaction between hosts and refugees. While the problem of resource use conflict caused by the influx of refugees might be local, it highlights regional and global security concerns and articulates the growing recognition of political and environmental factors for national and international security.

This article calls for closer attention to the Middle East in the wider debate on the purported rise of new modes of armed conflict following the end of the Cold War, particularly in relation to the notion of ‘regional conflict formations’ (RCFs). In so doing, it presents and analyses three main paradoxes. First, though the contemporary Middle East had its own share of intrastate conflicts that generally grew into regional constellations, a look at the region's post-colonial history suggests that such trends are not as novel as has often been claimed. Second, the striking longevity of regionally entwined conflict in the Middle East calls into question the common and generalizing argument that it was the end of the Cold War, together with the alleged disengagement of the superpowers, that constituted the radical shifts – including the rise of RCFs – that signalled the demise of old forms of politics and conflict involving weak states. Third, Middle Eastern states, mostly authoritarian in outlook, have over recent decades become stronger despite prevailing conditions of regionalized conflict; indeed, as tentatively suggested in this article, to some extent because of those factors.

This study aims to reflect on the interactions that result from the use of the seacoast in a small touristic town in Argentina. Agents in conflict are both beach users: on the one hand, tourists that enjoy sunbathing and, on the other hand, the artisanal fishermen who use the seacoast as a space for the circulation of tractors and boats and commercialization of their production in informal conditions. The case aimed to provide evidence on social innovation as a mobilizer of the creativity of citizens, the organizations of the third sector and public and private actors for the development of new solutions and better use of common resources.

This paper followed the methodology of the centre for research on social innovations (as per its initials in French) as proposed by Tardif and Harrisson (2005). The fieldwork was carried out with interviews to the stakeholders, visits of recognition and direct participation in the territory.

The paper provides empirical insights about how an overarching project arises from agreements between stakeholders and a public policy that promotes it. Governance mechanisms to promote sustainable fisheries, to create cooperative management methods and to support alternative livelihood programmes are essential for preventing conflicts and mitigating their impacts on fishing communities.

The value of this paper is to show how social innovation can emerge from civil society initiatives and how the state can create conditions to favour it, participating and cooperating in a process of co-construction.

There have recently been concerted efforts by many post‐conflict African countries to formulate and implement policies and measures that will reconstruct and develop their societies. Much of the discussions of realizing post‐conflict reconstruction and development have generally focused on disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of ex‐combatants. What is however, missing is a discussion on capacity development and capacity building initiatives to help in reconstruction in the period after DDR. This paper therefore examines the importance of capacity development in post‐conflict African environment. It notes that while demobilising and disarming warring factions is important, the success of reconstruction efforts in a post‐conflict environment depends largely on the ability to build and develop capacity and skills that are pertinent to helping reconstruct and promote the development goals of the countries. It is argued that post‐conflict societies should have a coherent and co‐ordinate approach to rebuilding, reconstructing and developing the capacity of the state in order to achieve the state’s legitimacy and effectiveness. Such capacity development measures should involve the development of physical infrastructure; the building of the state’s institutional structures; the promotion of good political and economic governance; skills and education training for individuals; and measures to improve and deliver security and social services.

Purpose – This chapter contributes to comparative biopolitics and reviews primatological literature, especially about our nearest relatives, the Great Apes.

Design/methodology/approach – Biopolitics in this chapter means evolutionarily informed political science, with emphasis on power relations. I review the literature on intrasexual and intersexual dominance interactions among individuals and competitive and/or agonistic interactions among groups in the Great Apes (Hominidae, formerly Pongidae): orangutan (Pongo with two species and three subspecies), gorilla (Gorilla with four subspecies), bonobo (Pan paniscus), and common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes with four subspecies). In the final section I present some (speculative) thoughts on Pan prior or the modern human ancestor.

Findings – Not only Man is a political animal.

Originality/value – Impartial, objective, and as complete as possible review of the literature for the students of (comparative) politics, ethology, and psychology.