Conflict (im)mobiles

Conflict mobiles are individuals whose (lack of) mobility is informed by violence. This manuscript is an ethnography of mobility based on personal narratives of those who move across borders within Central Africa. By taking mobility as its axiom and placing the lives of people on the move at its centre, the goal of this manuscript is twofold. On the one hand, it contests fixed (national) borders and defies static historical readings of Central Africa. On the other hand, it investigates how the multiple trajectories of individuals in Central Africa shape the mobility paradigm. There are many avatars of the conflict mobile, of which the Central African Republic refugee-students in Kinshasa (DR Congo) are only one. These students' journeys, life stories, survival and navigation strategies, dreams and frustrations are described in depth. Moreover, by acknowledging the crucial role of the informants on which this work is based (including artists) and with whom researchers produce knowledge, this manuscript invites the reader to look at the field of research, but also at academia at large, through a mobile lens so as to 'un-border' and embrace inclusive methodological and epistemological practices.