It struck me as I was reading their book that, though they didn’t examine them in much depth, landmines played a crucial role in delineating the boundaries around these “cartographic fantasies.” That so many mines were laid is an indication of how much violent effort was required to  ’unmix’ Bosnia’s cosmopolitan geography. To emplace a minefield is an exercise in violent mapmaking, an effort to draw an explosive border between an ‘Us’ and a ‘Them’. Unsurprisingly then, demining has been integrated into massive international effort, described by Toal and Dahlman, that has gone into reversing ethnic cleansing. Nonetheless, this has not been a straightforward process — my research in Bosnia showed that the removal of mines has sometimes played into nationalist efforts to stymie and obstruct efforts to build a cosmopolitan future.

The mine action sector has somewhat of an obsession with maps. Walk into the offices of any demining agency and you will see walls plastered with maps of every scale, covered in red dots and “polygons”. What is somewhat surprising is that the sector as a whole tends to think of them rather straightforwardly and unproblematically. Toal and Dahlman come at maps from an alternative perspective, that of “critical geopolitics“, a broad critique of the social science tradition of accepting maps, borders and geography as unproblematic and “scientific.” For Toal and Dahlman, geopolitics is “less a determining location or a stable hierarchy”  than “a culturally embedded practice operating across networks of power” and a “field of competing political constructions.” A map tells you as much about the person(s) drawing it as the place that is drawn.

The demining map can be ”deconstructed” in a similar way. Charles Mather has shown how mine action’s obsession with  technical expertise, ‘information management’ and geographic information systems (GIS) mapping functions to depoliticize and marginalize local community voices in planning demining efforts. He tries to unpack the mine map to show how it is a product of “cadastral politics”, not simply a “scientific” process. Similarly, in my research on South Sudan I found that unintentionally, coloring red on UN maps roads that were not verified as mine-free may have contributed to the marginalization of “remote areas” in distribution of humanitarian aid.

In short, demining can never be an entirely “apolitical” and technocratic process because minefields are artifacts of political conflict, an attempt by political actors to reshape territorial space. Everything about the process of mine clearance – from information gathering to map-drawing to removing ordancne — is intrinsically political.

To read my full review of Toal and Dahlman’s book, click here.

On 12 January 2010, Haiti suffered literal state collapse, as thousands of buildings crumbled in the 21st century’s deadliest earthquake. Over 200,000 were killed, 300,000 injured and 1.5 million displaced. Almost 20% of federal government employees were killed. The Presidential Palace lay in ruins and 27 of 28 federal government buildings were destroyed. An estimated 4,000 prisoners escaped from incarceration. In a remaining government building a couple months after the earthquake, one could still see civil servants rolling up bed mats in the morning, as they sought nightly refuge in their offices and the surrounding compounds. One UN official described it as the worst disaster the UN had ever had to confront. In this nightmarish context, to whom should a Haitian turn for protection from violence and ‘downside risks’ ?

Into the vacuum left by the implosion of the state apparatus, compounded by a sudden and overwhelming need for physical and social protection, has rushed a vast complex of global public and private actors. Street patrols, food distributions, teacher training, epidemiological surveys and child protective services are being provided by a mix of bilateral, multilateral and NGO agencies.

In a new paper written for the London School of Economics Global Governance program, I explore and interrogate this emerging political system of global governance in Haiti, particularly regarding its implications for ‘human security.’ The paper draws on some of the themes and theoretical work I developed in my book, Foreign Aid and Landmine Clearance, which looked at the global governance structures involved in clearing landmines and cluster munitions.

Click here to read the report.

On Wednesday, I gave a presentation at the London School of Economics Global Governance center exploring what all this means for for human security and progressive politics in post-earthquake Haiti. Since the earthquake, I have been working as Haiti Emergency Coordinator for Outreach International.

While this has little directly to do with mine action, the way in which aid is being organized by public-private complexes mirrors my findings in my landmine clearance research, recently released in my new book Foreign Aid and Landmine Clearance.

To have a look at my PowerPoint presentation, click here (Apologies for the poor quality graphics, I had to compress them to be able to keep the file size small enough to post online).

As one of the many people who was involved in compiling this year’s Landmine Monitor report on Somalia, I can say with confidence that mine action professionals in Somalia, particularly in the south central region, face one of the most difficult operating environments in the world. They face ongoing conflict, complex logistics, political disorder and a lack of sufficient funding.

“Each new ratification brings us one step closer to the life-saving promises of this treaty and each new signature increases the stigma against this weapon making it harder for any country to even contemplate future use,” said Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch. “We call on all countries that have not done so to sign and ratify the Convention without delay.”

Four other countries have ratified the treaty, the Holy See, Ireland, Sierra Leone, and Norway.

The ratification occured at an event on the Cluster Munitions Convention at the UN in New York, attended by some 75 countries.  The Democratic Republic of the Congo signed the treaty at the event and Iraq announced an intention to join.

In an indicator of the severity of Laos’ cluster munitions problem, in 2008 31 people were killed and 69 people injured by US ordnance dropped during the Vietnam War.  Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped an average of a plane load of bombs on Laos every eight minutes.  Almost the entire population of the Laotian Plain of Jars had to evacuate and a US Information Service refugee survey at the time found that 80% of the victims of the bombing there and the surrounding Xieng Khouang province were civilians. In 1996, the UN estimated that about 500,000 tons of UXO remained in the ground.

For more details on the contamination of Laos by cluster munitions and other unexploded remnants of war, click here.

For a history of how the terrible contamination of Laos occured, either click here go to the Mennonite Central Committee’s website or read my paper on the history of efforts to ban and mitigate the impact of mines and cluster munitions since the Indochinese Wars.

Click here to read more.

“Without full donor support many of Mine Action initiatives will have to be cancelled and more civilians will be at risk of losing limbs, lives and livelihood,” said Dmitry Titov, Assistant Secretary-General for Rule of Law and Security Institutions.

For more information click here.

To learn more about UN mine action, click here.

The demining profession is overwhelmingly dominated by men, largely due to demining agencies’ reliance on hiring former combatants and the often patriarchal contexts in which they work.  There has been a deep reluctance in many quarters to hire female deminers.

However, in several places, demining agencies have successfully deployed female deminers.  To read more about NPA’s female deminers in Sudan, click here.  In addition to providing employment and economic empowerment, hiring female deminers can be an important challenge to conceptions of masculinity forged during conflict.  To have women involved in the process of restoring security — traditionally a male role — can send a powerful message.

To learn more about gender issues in mine action, go to the Swiss Campaign to Ban Landmines’ ”Gender and Mine Action Portal.”  Specifically, have a look at their study on gender issues in mine action. Click here to read the UN’s policy on gender and mine action.

Over 200 people fell victim to mines, dud cluster munitions and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in 2006.  Just last week a UN peacekeeper was killed while clearing UXO in southern Lebanon.

To contribute to Lebanese mine action, consider donating to the following NGOs which work in country: Mines Advisory Group (MAG), Norwegian People’s Aid, Handicap International, the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) and DanChurchAid.