The Central African Republic (CAR) is a hub of violence and political problems. Louisa Lombard is an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale. She has devoted the past thirteen years conducting an ethnographic study of the CAR. The research is for her book, State of Rebellion, in which she hopes to discover ways to bring meaningful change to the region. Her goal for this book is to have a similar effect on the youth of America as the book Fighting for the Rainforest by Paul Richards. Lombard says the book informed people of the conflict in Sierra Leone, but it also showed the world the importance of studying conflicts. In a post cold war era, conflict transformed from a political struggle to being, “about primal drives, resources, …show more content…
Keeping this in mine, Lombard begins to dive into the meat of her book. Her first concern is with how foreign entities are affecting the CAR. Transitional government officials are not allowed to run for office, this means their jobs are temporary. To provide for themselves and their family, they tend to take bribes and set up a weak government. The relationship between foreign powers and the CAR government is a part of the problem rather than just the CAR government. To describe the foreign entities, Lombard coined the phrase “good intention crowds.” She acknowledges that the NGOs, the UN agencies and the foreign government groups all try to help. She calls them the, “the good intentions crowd to highlight the fact that the thing that unites them is their good intentions, but if we’re going to apply some kind of sociological term to them, they are a crowd” (Lombard). The crowd emphasises that they all have different goals and aspirations in regards to why they are there. The war is also not about the precious resources--diamonds--as some would lead one to believe. They instead care about being a state and the benefits that come with that. They would like to have a salary and pension. They are not concerned with their