Uncertainty in Changing Security Landscapes: Evidence from Colombia and Myanmar

This paper sheds light on how uncertainty informs people’s everyday lives in changing conflict situations. Annette Idler argues that, in settings of armed multiparty conflicts, changes such as ceasefires or the demobilization of an armed actor induce uncertainty because the previously existing order and the rules of behaviour attached to it are no longer available. Drawing on evidence from extensive fieldwork in Myanmar’s and Colombia’s remote conflict-affected borderlands, she shows that the extent to which change and increased levels of uncertainty impact negatively on security depends on people’s prior experiences of (non-state) order. ​