With or Without the State: Moral Divergence and the Question of Trust in Security Assemblages in Burkina Faso

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since 2015, Burkina Faso has faced a rapid deterioration of national security, giving rise to new Security Force Assistance (SFA) programmes. This article investigates a ‘peacebuilding’ SFA project that assists in integrating state security forces, civil society, self-defence groups called Koglweogo, and the general population. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, which revealed social friction caused by the co-optation of the Koglweogo, the article examines the broad range of security practices and moralities within these ‘security assemblages’. Furthermore, by comparing how the different project participants try to make security work, the article challenges state-centred assumptions about vigilantism in Africa.