Teresa Koloma Beck 
The Normality of Civil War [PDF ebook] 
Armed Groups and Everyday Life in Angola

Contents

List of Acronyms 7

Acknowledgements 9

1. Introduction 11

1.1 The problem: the expansion of civil war into everyday life 13

1.2 The challenge: thinking the everyday 16

1.3 The conceptual framework: theories of the everyday 19

1.4 The case study: civil war in Angola (1976-2002) 21

1.5 Outline of the book 24

2. Theorising violent conflict: state of research 27

2.1 Micropolitical theories of violent conflict 28

2.2 Social theory approaches to violent conflict 32

2.3 Summary and implications for research 35

3. Normalities at war: a theoretical perspective on everyday

life in violent conflicts 39

3.1 Subject and life-world: theorising ‘normal’ experiences 40

3.2 ‘Terror as usual’: the transformation

of normality in violent conflict 57

4. Historical Background 69

4.1 Pre-colonial societies and weak colonial rule 71

4.2 The Estado Novo and the rise of nationalism 73

4.3 From anti-colonial struggle to independence 75

4.4 From independence to civil war 77

4.5 The Civil War 79

5. From the bush movement to the quasi-state (and back):

UNITA as an organisation 83

5.1 The militant anti-colonial guerrilla: 1966-76 85

5.2 The successful armed group: 1976-1989 96

5.3 Disintegration and decline: 1989-2002 104

6. Staging normality: UNITA as a life-world 109

6.1 ‘I have always been a soldier’:

recruiting members 111

6.2. ‘Weapon, hoe and pen’:

forming the UNITA combatant 113

6.3 Like from a different world:

the success of UNITA’s social project 117

7. ‘We lived in an eternal war’: life in the warscapes 121

7.1 Defending everyday life: adaptations to civil war violence 124

7.2 States of emergency: limits of normalisation 134

7.3 Orders of violence: accommodation to armed

groups’ rule 137

8. Conclusion 143

Bibliography 149

Index 161

Teresa Koloma Beck, Dr. phil., forscht an der Willy Brandt School of Public Policy der Universität Erfurt.