Exceptional (in)security: The vernacular turn and chronic crisis in Sierra Leone

Abstract

This article builds upon a growing body of critical security literature that explores the diverse, multiple and scalar experiences of crises and emergencies. While there has been extensive analysis that looks at the conceptualization of these terms and the state and international politics surrounding them, this article focuses on more local experiences and perspectives of what it means for particular events to be exceptional, particularly in places where crisis is context. By employing a vernacular security lens to Sierra Leone, where both authors have done over a decade of fieldwork, this article empirically examines intersections and divergences of experiences in periods generally recognized as extraordinary – namely the civil conflict (1991–2002), the Ebola epidemic (2014–2016) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020 onward) – alongside insecurities in everyday life, in order to better understand what comes to constitute the exceptional in particular circumstances and why. By scrutinizing exceptionality in the Sierra Leonean context, where crisis is endemic for most people, we demonstrate how and why there are often disconnects between international and state declarations and examine the reactions and perspectives of local people and what this can tell us about engaging with particular concepts in critical security studies.

Introduction

In recent years, the security literature has begun to embrace the ‘vernacular turn’ in security (Croft and Vaughan-Williams, 2017; Jarvis, 2019). Building upon critical security studies, alongside other critical theoretical frameworks, the vernacular turn advocates for moving beyond discussions of elite security discourses and paying particular attention to the security concerns of ‘ordinary people’. By engaging with this framework, this article explores ‘fundamental questions around: what security means; how security feels; what conditions, objects, experiences or relationships create security and insecurity; with which values is security associated?’ (Jarvis, 2019: 116). There has, however, been limited analysis that examines what this framework means in relation to literature and the construction of exceptionality in relation to crises and emergencies. As more recently noted by Kurylo (2022: 2), ‘the emergency claims of “ordinary” citizens and other everyday actors are seldom heard by international relations (IR) and security scholars’. There also has not been many empirical case studies that explore what the vernacular security lens can tell us on a more practical level, particularly in areas where crisis is context (Vigh, 2008).

This article, therefore, employs a vernacular security approach to explore the notion of exceptionality and what this means in Global South contexts, and particularly for people where crisis and (in)security is an embedded part of daily life. As anthropologist Vigh (2008: 7) aptly notes, ‘[f]or many people around the world – the chronically ill, the structurally violated, socially marginalized and poor – the world is not characterized by peace, prosperity and order but by the presence and possibility of conflict, poverty and disorder’. How, then, does exceptionality come to be understood and defined by ordinary people in these contexts and what does this mean for intersections between ‘the everyday’, ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’? Using Sierra Leone as an empirical case study, this article engages with theoretical literature from critical security studies, anthropology, international relations and feminist theories to examine what exceptionality means in contexts where crisis is essentially chronic: what constitutes as (in)security and why are certain periods exceptional, particularly in contexts where the general criteria for a crisis (i.e. death tolls, declarations of states of emergency, military presence, restricted movement) are regular occurrences? We examine the experiences and narratives of ordinary Sierra Leoneans – by which we mean non-elites from rural areas and smaller cities, who represent the majority of the population but whose voices and perspectives are frequently marginalized in security research – based on events from the past 30 years. Engaging these perspectives illustrates the multiple, alternative and diverse ways exceptionality is constructed.

As an initial caveat, we have no desire to peddle stereotypical imagery or colonial tropes that portray Sierra Leone as downtrodden, war-torn, victimized or in any way in need of ‘saving’. On the contrary, our aim is to foreground Sierra Leonean perspectives and experiences to illustrate the different ways exceptionality can be understood in relation to notions of crises and emergencies. By looking at ordinary everyday life in Sierra Leone, we demonstrate the real, lived and evolving heterogeneity of crisis in context and how individuals and communities (re)define this in relation to exceptionality, contrasting it with state and global narratives. For the purposes of concision (and based upon when research was conducted), we use a vernacular security lens to examine both ‘everyday’ and ‘exceptional’ experiences – from the civil war, which commenced in 1991, to the present – to explore the ways these events converge and in what ways concepts like exceptionality come to be defined.

Sierra Leone has experienced a few substantial crisis-like events, such as the civil armed conflict (1991–2002), the Ebola epidemic (2014–2016) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020 onward). However, these emergency periods were not all viewed with the same sense of urgency and even within them, the notion of exceptionality ebbed and flowed across time and space. Notably too, there have also been periods of emergency declared by the Sierra Leonean state reflective of issues not necessarily considered ‘exceptional’ but rather very much part of daily life. Such issues also cannot be resolved with temporary measures, such as a declaration of sexual and gender-based violence in late 2019 (Martin and Koroma, 2020) and, more recently, the Kush ¹ epidemic (Fofana, 2024). Therefore, there are also disconnects between state declarations and what ordinary Sierra Leoneans consider exceptional and issues to be prioritized. This begs interesting questions about the currency and weight of states of emergency from the perspective of ordinary citizens, and the politics of exceptionality in contexts where ‘everyday crises’ are endemic in ordinary life.

The empirical research and analyses are the work of two researchers, both of whom have conducted qualitative and ethnographic research in Northern Sierra Leone (mainly Bombali, Karene and Tonkolili districts) and Freetown. Both researchers have spent significant time in Sierra Leone (one of whom has been conducting research since 2012 and the other has lived and worked in the country since 2014) and have therefore witnessed changes, continuities and evolutions both within the everyday and during emergency periods. The content on the conflict is largely the work of one researcher who conducted over 100 interviews on perspectives of the conflict in 2014 prior to the Ebola outbreak. At the time, the researcher was examining a local reconciliation programme and chose to engage with communities based upon their relationship to this programme (i.e. some areas working with the programme and others that had not experienced it). These communities were all in Bombali and Karene districts and were anywhere between 1–3 hours’ journey from the district capital. Interviewees were a relatively even mix of men and women, and also accounted for respected community members and other demographics, such as youth. They were always conducted with a translator in the language the participant felt most comfortable with. The Ebola research is largely a mix of both researchers’ experiences, with the researcher who conducted interviews on post-conflict reconciliation re-interviewing communities she had worked in previously, while the other conducted research on the effects of Ebola and COVID-19 on livelihoods in and around Makeni and Magburaka. This research took place in 2020. This researcher examined how Ebola and COVID-19 were experienced and responded to by different people in different ways. This included interviewing over 80 people representing different demographics, including age, gender, rural and urban dwellers and different livelihoods. We analyse the empirical information by employing a cross-cutting thematic analysis which allows for different themes and trends to emerge.

By examining both more traditionally recognized ‘emergency periods’ – namely the civil war, Ebola outbreak and COVID-19 pandemic – alongside and intertwined with everyday crises from ordinary Sierra Leonean perspectives, we make both empirical and theoretical contributions that build upon literature in international relations and critical security studies. While there has been some literature in anthropology rethinking concepts of crises (Larkin, 2016; Roitman, 2014; Vigh, 2008), much of the empirical literature in everyday and vernacular security contexts, alongside international relations literature on emergencies, has largely been examined in Global North contexts (Crawford and Hutchison, 2016; Croft and Vaughan-Williams, 2017; Jarvis and Lister, 2013). Therefore, we look more closely at what constitutes exceptionality from the standpoint of ordinary citizens in contexts where everyday life is its own crisis. By examining these literatures in tandem, alongside the Sierra Leone case study, our contribution is twofold: first, examining what a vernacular security lens can tell us in a Global South context and the ways we can better understand diverse notions of exceptionality in order to move beyond state-centric interventions; and second, highlighting the multiplicity of understandings from more localized perspectives.

The article first examines the relevant literature on vernacular security, emergencies, exceptionality and crisis to illustrate where our contribution lies. We then provide some background and context for the Sierra Leone case study, before proceeding to a thematic analysis of different characteristics commonly affiliated with crises and emergency – namely, death and physical violence, military intervention and state–society relations, and economic hardship and mobility restrictions. We argue that by employing a vernacular security approach in such contexts illustrates the ways exceptionality does not necessarily align with state and global declarations, but rather is relational, situational and contextual. Understanding the diversity of what constitutes exceptionality is important because it provides more concrete foundations for better grasping how and why certain populations (re)act to certain events in different ways and at different times.

The vernacular turn, everyday security, emergency and (chronic) crisis

Critical security studies has sought to move beyond normative, elite security frameworks and instead both questions the foundational assumptions of more traditional security institutions and actors, as well as looking beyond and outside of them. The vernacular turn in security has been one such framework. Moving beyond how speech acts constitute securitization, vernacular security centralizes ordinary people and recognizes different and diverse understandings of what it means to be (in)secure and the roles that context, history, time and space play in these understandings. Initially conceptualized by Bubandt (2005) to highlight the multiscalar nature of security for different people in Indonesia, this framework has more recently (re)emerged as part of a broader shift in social sciences to better understand ordinary people and everyday experiences. As noted by Croft and Vaughan-Williams (2017: 22–23), vernacular security helps understand how people:

construct and describe experiences of security and insecurity in their own vocabularies, cultural repertoires of knowledge and categories of understanding . . . [it is] not about the separateness of security description and understanding in different locales, but rather seeks to understand non-elite knowledge [and] categories of experience and articulations of the self and other in relation to broader cultural contexts.

Vernacular security thus allows for a range of perspectives on (in)security, with a greater emphasis on ‘ordinary people’ or ‘non-elites’. As further noted by Jarvis (2019: 117), it ‘takes seriously the differences between, and particularities of, lived experience in all their heterogeneity’. The value of engaging with lived experiences and narratives derives in large part from feminist literature (Sylvester, 2013), whereby scholars have highlighted how experience ‘becomes the bedrock of evidence upon which explanation is built’ (Scott, 1991: 777). Experience has valuable explanatory currency and aids in much-needed contextualization central to engaging the vernacular security approach, particularly in contexts where there are multiple and intersecting insecurities and crises that have the capacity to exacerbate each other. This begs the question not just of ‘what experience is . . . it asks questions about what experience does’ (Phipps, 2016: 303–304). Therefore, while critical security studies has highlighted the value of experiences and the need to engage ordinary perspectives, this has not been explored by expanding to thinking through what exceptionality means more locally, particularly in contexts where crisis is a looming constant.

These critical frameworks build upon and intersect with another recent thread in security – that of everyday security. As noted by Crawford and Hutchison (2016: 1188), these frameworks

ask us to consider the more mundane, ordinary routines and day-to-day discussions and practices that people engage in to help manage their own safety . . . [it] underlines . . . individuals and groups within distinct and specific contexts, as well as the values, beliefs, perspectives and expectations that inform them.

Crucially, everyday security is framed as antithetical to the exceptional so frequently highlighted in security discourses. It ‘acts as an important counter to a prevailing emphasis upon the “spectacular” and the “exceptional”, which cast a long shadow over security research’ and ‘helps to accentuate the mundane rather than the spectacular, the routine rather than the exceptional’ (Crawford and Hutchison, 2016: 1188–1189). While acknowledging the everyday is a good starting point, this framework does not necessarily account for contexts where what many would consider ‘exceptional’ underpins the ordinary, as discussed in further detail below. However, the everyday is a useful starting point as ‘residing in three dimensions: mundane spaces (the spatial everyday), routine practices (the temporal everyday), and lived experiences (the affective everyday)’ (Nyman, 2021).

Everyday security highlights similar elements to vernacular security in that they are both interested in the mundane, minutiae, ordinary individuals and experiences, but as Jarvis points out, these frames are intertwined: ‘Vernacular security is precisely, and only, whatever people understand or construct security to mean in the context of their everyday lives – and perhaps, therefore, might be better seen as an approach rather than a concept’ (Jarvis, 2019: 118). In the context of this article, we understand the everyday as a site of analysis, and vernacular security as an approach to analysis. While there has been good empirical scholarship in relation to both vernacular and everyday security, this has been limited in Global South contexts (Badurdeen et al., 2023; Bubandt, 2005; Fisher and Leonardi, 2021). We therefore make a further contribution by demonstrating its conceptual relevance in the Sierra Leonean context and why this should be more readily employed in Global South contexts.

Further, while existing frameworks related to crisis highlight the role of the ordinary, they do not necessarily consider contexts where the ordinary is frequently defined by crisis and emergency. Both crisis and emergency are terms that have proliferated over the past few decades and are often used interchangeably, frequently referring to events or periods that are unexpected and exceptional from other time frames (Adey et al., 2015; Calhoun, 2010; Kurylo, 2022; Roitman, 2014). Crisis is ‘a specific event, point in time or incident that marks a break in the usual flow of experience’ (Samimian-Darash and Rotem, 2019: 912). Janet Roitman asks the important question of ‘crisis as compared to what?’, emphasizing a rupture and exploring the ways in which it is temporal and thought of as ‘a history of the present’, often only understood in retrospect (Roitman, 2014). It is a signifier and ‘used to denote a state of affairs . . . as well as claims for “self-authorizing” action’ (Roitman, 2017: 33).

Definitions of emergencies have similar characteristics to crises and use synonymous adjectives as descriptors. An emergency is a ‘sudden, unpredictable event emerging against a background of ostensible normalcy, causing suffering or danger and demanding urgent response’ (Calhoun, 2010: 30). Emergencies are ‘often conflated with the notion of “exception” or the idea that extraordinary times call for exceptional measures’ (Kurylo, 2022: 3). While both concepts certainly denote some sort of need for response, emergencies arguably imply more immediate national involvement if for no other reason than the term ‘state of emergency’ is commonly affiliated with it, referring to temporary state-led measures designed to address the issue at hand, or ‘a technology of governance with particular means and ends’ (Samimian-Darash and Rotem, 2019). For the most part, however, both terms frequently refer and relate one to the other. For example, Larkin (2016) defines crisis ‘as a moment of emergency – a point of extremity’ (2016: 39). In addition, ‘emergency and crisis both gesture towards some overturning of normal and normalized order’ (Adey et al., 2015: 5), ultimately placing emphasis on rupture and exceptionalism. Therefore, while there is acknowledgement of exceptionality in relation to crises and emergencies, there are still foundational assumptions about what this means. This article more precisely interrogates exceptionality and aims to highlight the varied and multiple views on what this can mean.

Other scholars have also pointed to the fact that these concepts are not about ruptures and exceptionalism because they are so embedded in the ordinary. Vigh (2008) invites us to think about contexts where crisis is a ‘condition’ loosening ‘the phenomenon from its temporal bracketing and allow[ing] us to see it not just as a defined period of transition but as a state of affairs’ (2008: 10). He illustrates how in many places and people, crisis is chronic and itself ultimately defines context. By understanding crisis as context, it grants ‘an analytical optic’ (Vigh, 2008: 15), which allows for a reframing of the ways events are defined. Similarly, Adey et al. (2015) also state, ‘For many, life is lived in a state of emergency’ (2015: 5). Kurylo (2022) also reconsiders emergency by engaging with a vernacular contextual lens. Countering the notions in security studies of the extraordinary or exceptional that often frames emergencies, she argues that ‘it is crucial to explore how emergency is understood, constructed and experienced by citizens in local contexts’ (Kurylo, 2022: 4). Such scholars have thus emphasized and acknowledged the need to move beyond international and state-level politics of crises and emergencies in order to rethink and recontextualize what these concepts mean to different people in different contexts. This article does precisely that; by employing an empirical case study, we look more specifically at what these concepts actually mean to ordinary people in a Sierra Leonean context.

While some may be inclined to think that if everyday life is always a crisis, or frequently an emergency, then perhaps the terms completely lose their meanings altogether. However, just because the possibility of crises and emergencies are omnipresent for Sierra Leoneans does not mean there is no exceptionality. As Vigh (2008:11) himself notes, ‘crisis, when it is chronic, may become normal in that it is what there is most, but it does not become normal in the sense that this is how it should be’. Therefore, exceptionalism still prevails in contexts of chronic crisis. The notion of exceptionality is ultimately the core component to better understanding the different ways people interpret these concepts and the ways this contrasts with state and international narratives. The question then is: what counts as exception and for whom is it exceptional? (Kirk, 2020; Kurylo, 2022; Lees et al., 2022). Employing a vernacular security lens to the Sierra Leone context allows us to look not only at the diversity of what constitutes as emergency and crisis, but what more precisely makes certain characteristics exceptional (or not).

Sierra Leone context (1991–present)

This section provides case study context and a brief discussion of the three well-known ‘crisis’ events that occurred over the past 30 years in Sierra Leone – namely, the civil conflict (1991–2002), the Ebola epidemic (2014–2016) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020 onward). These events will be explored in tandem with more general everyday experiences. This background section ultimately provides a more concrete foundation for understanding how and why certain characteristics were exceptional, while others were not.

The Sierra Leone civil conflict began in April 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front vanguard (RUF) crossed into Sierra Leone from neighbouring Liberia. It is largely agreed that the conflict was the result of disillusioned and disenfranchised youth (Abdullah, 1998; Richards, 1996). The ‘official’ death toll is commonly cited between 30,000 and 70,000 (Bellows and Miguel, 2009). During the 1990s, fighting gradually spread across the country and physical violence was committed by rebels, military, private military contractors, peacekeeping forces and civilians from all sides. While particularly heinous atrocities, including the use of child soldiers and sexual violence, were widespread and impacted virtually every part of Sierra Leone (Mitton, 2015), it is also important to emphasize that the ways and means by which individuals and communities were impacted differed across both time and space over the 11-year period (Martin, 2023). In addition, the regional settings of violence shifted, with Northern Sierra Leone (where the present research was conducted) not seeing much direct physical conflict until the latter part of the decade. At the state level, states of emergency were declared in 1992, upon Valentine Strasser coming to power via a coup d’etat, and in 1998, after Tejan Kabbah had been elected president but during a particularly turbulent period of fighting when a number of rebel groups, collectively known as the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), became a junta and temporarily took over the government (Keen, 2005). However, the state-level nature of this emergency was distinct from the extraordinary nature of the conflict as seen by ordinary people, which was much more contingent and contextual (discussed further below).

Just over a decade after the civil war had officially ended, Sierra Leone experienced a violent outbreak of Ebola. The epidemic became prominent in Sierra Leone in May 2014 when a number of people in Eastern Sierra Leone contracted the disease while attending a funeral in neighbouring Guinea (Richards, 2016). Initially, there were minimal efforts to contain it, but over the course of the rainy season (May–October 2014), the disease spread across the country (on a geographic course very similar to that of the civil war). It was not until the end of July 2014, when the disease reached Freetown, that then President Ernest Bai Koroma declared a state of emergency (SoE), instituting new temporary legal and security measures, such as the National Ebola Response Centre, overseen by the Ministry of Defence. The state was then supported by the arrival of the first-ever UN peacekeeping-like mission called UNMEER (Enria, 2019). Notably, too, Ebola itself is a violent disease – a haemorrhagic fever that quickly attacks the whole body, causing graphic symptoms including internal and external bleeding, and has an average death rate of 50% (World Health Organization). This, in combination with the fact that a disease outbreak of this kind had never before been seen in the region and the significant state and international security measures that followed, meant there were many exceptional characteristics of this period. Again, however, this notion of exceptionality – what made it so and for whom – was determined by prior experiences of both the civil conflict and everyday life.

When news then began to spread in early 2020 of the COVID-19 virus and the inability of prominent global governments to contain it, Sierra Leoneans became seriously concerned. An SoE was in fact declared five days prior to the first recorded case in anticipation of the virus reaching Sierra Leone. Upon hearing the news of the first case in country, one man residing in Makeni broke down in tears saying: ‘I am afraid for my young son, I remember how awful Ebola was, I don’t want anything to happen to my boy. I need to protect him from this, but I don’t know how’ (Interview 1). The recent experience of Ebola created an initial widespread anxiety across Sierra Leone (see also James et al., 2023; Lees et al., 2022). People observed with fear and trepidation as the Coronavirus Dashboard, which was readily accessible and set up to provide daily reports of new cases and death tolls, quickly reported the virus spreading from one district to another. While the virus certainly did spread across the country and people did die, there was a mounting sense of waiting for something exceptional that never really came. Increasingly, the evidence of COVID-19’s impact (or lack thereof) did not align with the need for the extraordinary security and legal measures that had been implemented. In fact, the everyday consequences of the SoE quickly came to be perceived as more problematic than the disease itself. Thus, the exceptionality during this period appeared to be more ‘man-made’, rather than a necessary evil.

While these events are considered some of the more exceptional periods in recent Sierra Leonean history (and globally), they need to be understood within the context of broader ‘non-crisis’ experiences in everyday life, which, for the vast majority of Sierra Leoneans, is its own challenge. For example, 26.1% of the population are living below the income poverty line and 59.2% of the population are defined as multidimensionally poor, meaning they face multiple deprivations (SL-MPI, 2023). The World Food Programme (2024) also reports that 82% of Sierra Leoneans are food insecure and 68% of the population spend more than 75% of their total expenditure on food. This more tangibly means that most people already experience extreme financial, food and health insecurities (among many others) even without large scale declarations of crisis, which become compounded with pre-existing ones. Crisis is, in fact, commonly attached to issues in everyday parlance, such as fuel shortages or hikes in food prices (Jones, 2022).

To make matters even more complex, the government has frequently declared states of emergency outside the aforementioned periods. In 2012, then President Koroma declared an SoE during a Cholera outbreak; in early 2019 President Bio declared sexual and gender-based violence an SoE, and in 2024, he again declared a national emergency to address the Kush ² epidemic (Fofana, 2024). Setting aside the fact that SoEs are not necessarily legally tenable responses for the latter declarations, these facts evidence two key points. First, the fact that the government has fairly regularly declared SoEs over the past 14 years means they lose a certain ‘exceptional currency’ that they are intended to have. Second, these declarations do not always align with the crisis issues and priorities facing many Sierra Leoneans. For example, when the Kush epidemic was declared, inflation was at 36% (Statistics Sierra Leone, 2024), a much more significant and widespread issue that meant prices of goods impacted the ability to access key staples, such as food and fuel. Therefore, crises and emergencies are very much part of the country’s context, both at the state level and in everyday lives of ordinary people (even if there is a misalignment between how these are perceived), so what then constitutes exceptional circumstances and for whom?

Characteristics of exceptionality

Death and physical violence

A key characteristic of crises and/or emergencies is the threat to life, either facilitated by man-made forces (such as armed groups), natural disasters or public health outbreaks. However, in Sierra Leone, death by itself does not necessarily signal exceptionality, but the nature of it can. Death is unfortunately very much part of everyday life. Both authors have regularly observed news reaching Sierra Leoneans of relatives or close friends suddenly passing away. WhatsApp photos are circulated daily of people claimed by road accidents or illnesses, alongside notifications of funerals. One author was at their office in early 2020 when their Sierra Leonean colleague received news that a teenage cousin had been playing football and died suddenly later that evening. The news was met with tsks and hisses, condemnation of the medical system and Krio expressions such as ‘eh bo, so sad’, ³ before the conversation quickly moved on. There were no tears or rushed panic as one might expect. Rather, it was evidently a common part of ordinary life.

Physical violence should also be understood against the backdrop of everyday life. While the Sierra Leone civil war conjures up imagery of extreme violence that was often illustrated in the media (Mitton, 2015), particularly in relation to child soldiers and sexual violence (Coulter, 2009; Shepler, 2014), these experiences should be couched in broader context. As noted by other scholars (Alexandre and Mutondo, 2022; Meger 2010), violence against women and children (both boys and girls) cannot be understood in a vacuum; rather it is part of much broader pre-existing (and ongoing) social structures that are exacerbated in wartime. This was also the case in Sierra Leone, where certain elements of the conflict, such as the treatment of women and their roles as bush wives, had continuity with everyday life. Communal hierarchies, labour structures, and even sexual violence were reflective of women’s experiences more generally. Other experiences, such as abduction, gang rape, disconnect from family and the looming uncertainty of when physical violence would occur, were considered exceptional (Coulter, 2009). This is, of course, not to say that the experience of child soldiering and instances of conflict-related sexual violence are not exceptional to those involved, but rather that there is a need to better understand more precisely which aspects of these experiences were unique and for whom.

More generally too, the civil conflict lasted 11 years, but direct physical violence was not constant, nor even particularly consistent to everyone at all times. In fact, conflict-related peace ⁴ was present for significant periods in certain areas, even if other forms of interpersonal or structural violence reminiscent of everyday life continued. For example, in northern rural areas, most people did not encounter rebel forces until the late 1990s. Further, this period of the conflict was more of an effort to obtain sustenance for the rebels. Encounters were characterized more as ‘hit and run’ attacks – taking food and property – than the excessive use of physical violence that had preceded the AFRC regime (Martin, 2023). As one informant from the north noted: ‘I did not have a negative experience [during the war]. I had to run up the hill, after some time I came back and lived alongside the rebels . . . we had to provide them with food, but they were not hurting anyone’ (Interview 2). Another interviewee from the same town, however, provided a very different account: ‘I suffered greatly . . . my daughter was raped by fifteen men and she died afterward . . . the rebels looted everything; they were animals’ (Interview 3). Some interviewees recounted dead bodies scattered throughout their villages after the rebels attacked, while others largely pointed to the loss of property and food shortages. This is emblematic of both the diversity of experiences and the ways people understood what constituted as exceptional. The official death toll of direct violence during the 11-year conflict period is estimated between 30,000 and 70,000, however the number of deaths during this time frame is estimated at around 460,000 (Lacina and Gleditsch, 2005), meaning that only a marginal number resulted from direct wartime violence, while the rest resulted from causes characteristic of everyday life. These deaths were, however, less frequently highlighted because they were not necessarily seen as ‘part of the conflict’, but rather affiliated with everyday issues such as malaria and the inability to obtain medical attention.

Between the conflict period and Ebola, both life (and death) renormalized (Martin, 2016) to a significant extent. In 2014, however, rumours began to spread of a new disease in neighbouring Guinea, but few people were particularly concerned at the outset – death and disease are part of everyday life. Even the initial sensitization messaging, ‘Ebola kills’, was found to be counterproductive because it assumed death would serve as a shorthand warning (Enria, 2019). However, as the disease spread across the country and ordinary people began to see it for themselves, perspectives changed. Witnessing the particularly physical, violent symptoms of the disease, combined with its rapid progression and high death rate (wiping out entire populations in some areas), meant that people began to consider the Ebola period as something exceptional (also see James et al., 2023). It was not death itself, however, that defined the exceptionality, but rather the never-before-seen nature and manifestation of the disease and how quickly people were surrounded by so much death at such significant rates.

Ebola starkly contrasted with COVID-19. While there was much more initial fear of COVID-19, the fact that the physical symptoms were akin to a ‘fresh cold’ and did not result in particularly high death tolls meant that people did not necessarily consider the disease itself particularly exceptional. The SoE did, however, result in direct physical violence, but there was a disconnect between ordinary people’s viewpoints about the need for the SoE and the government’s desire to maintain it (discussed in more detail below). Therefore, while in many circumstances fatalities signal a crisis, or the need to declare an emergency, in Sierra Leone neither death nor physical violence by themselves are necessarily signifiers of exceptionality. As one Sierra Leonean doctor stated in a recent interview: ‘People are so used to death. So, hearing about [people dying] is not shocking’ (Interview 4). The backdrop, causes and context of it, however, do contribute to different ideas about exceptionalism. Thus, employing a vernacular security lens to empirical research serves to question foundational assumptions about characteristics assumed to signal crises and emergencies. This approach goes beyond simply signalling the need for contextualization, but looking at actual experiences. Engaging with everyday perspectives allows for deeper, more nuanced insights into what role characteristics, such as death and violence, play in determining the magnitude of particular circumstances.

Military intervention and state–society relations

As noted in the literature review, a common response to crises is the declaration of a state of emergency in which the state suspends ‘normal laws’ in favour of laws needed to target the issue at hand. The ability to declare an SoE and have these respective laws be followed, however, makes profound assumptions about trust between citizens and the state (Honig, 2009). In Sierra Leone, SoEs have frequently been declared over the past 30 years and so this does not, in and of itself, necessarily signal an exceptional period. In fact, a key reason the civil conflict began was because of deeply held mistrust in the state (Reno, 1995), an issue that has never fully been rectified. This has meant that during the civil conflict, Ebola and COVID-19, mistrust often exacerbated a variety of issues (not just those directly affiliated to the issue at hand) during these periods. Furthermore, military presence and securitization – key elements of SoEs – also do not, by themselves, signal exceptionality. Checkpoints manned by military and police have always been part of ordinary daily movements in Sierra Leone, so their presence is not exceptional, but as above, the nature of it (i.e. the presence of foreign military) and the ways military were mobilized was considered exceptional at certain times.

The presence of international military did signal exceptionality during the civil conflict and the Ebola epidemic. Many international armed groups were present during the conflict in different places and at different times. Executive Outcomes was a private South African military contractor which was hired to push back the RUF between 1995 and 1996; ECOMOG, comprised of troops from the surrounding West African community (largely Nigerian), was mostly present between 1997 and 1999, and UN and British forces were in Sierra Leone during the latter part of the conflict until well after its official conclusion (Keen, 2005). Prior to the civil conflict, there had not been a major foreign military presence since colonialism, and their respective presence signalled to ordinary Sierra Leoneans the exceptional nature of the conflict. However, personal encounters and perspectives of these groups varied. In the north, for example, it was emphasized that the presence and aid of ECOMOG troops in 1998–1999 was particularly important and their efforts at that time continue to be commended to this day.

The presence of foreign troops during the civil conflict thus established a particular precedent of exceptionality for ordinary Sierra Leoneans. This was subsequently highlighted during the Ebola period, when the magnitude of the epidemic was emphasized not only by the militarized response on a national level, but by the fact that the UN set up its first ever peacekeeping-type health mission in the region, the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER). Their efforts were further aided by the presence of the UK military (Benton, 2017). As noted by one interviewee, ‘The village was quarantined and the police and military started appearing and I thought Ebola is true, this is real’ (Interview 5). Military presence thus played a pivotal role in signalling the severity of the disease to ordinary people in rural areas. Ebola securitization also meant people linked these experiences to those during the civil conflict, as one person stated: ‘there were two wars in this country: the rebels and Ebola’ (Interview 6). This linkage is still commonly heard today and demonstrates that there are particular exceptional characteristics that connect these two periods, ultimately making these events distinct from either the everyday or COVID-19.

COVID-19, however, proved to be a different story. The SoE mandated local military enforcement which manifested in multiple ways, such as more frequent checkpoints and the use of physical force for people who did not comply with lockdown restrictions (Wilkinson and Fairhead, 2017). Some women explained that when they left their compounds to fetch water during COVID-19 lockdowns, they risked being beaten by the police. These experiences initially heightened local concerns about the threat and severity of the disease. However, it quickly became clear to ordinary Sierra Leoneans that COVID-19 was not the epidemic they had feared (as discussed above). Thus, the heavy-handed nature of the military was viewed as unnecessary. Ultimately, the combination of militarization and longstanding mistrust in the government meant violent clashes between soldiers and citizens ensued. The military used physical violence to suppress people protesting the lockdowns and the socio-economic impacts related to them (Jones, 2022). In one northern mining community, residents explained how security forces had responded when they learned that mining was continuing during a COVID-related mining ban:

Law enforcement agencies and security personnel conducted raids on artisanal mining (ASM) sites to ensure compliance with the COVID-19 lockdown measures. These constant raids have led to the drowning and death of many ASM miners including women and children at the Pampana river. (Interview 7)

Much of the violence that occurred during COVID-19, then, was because of a disconnect between the state and its citizens over what constituted as exceptional and whether such extreme measures were indeed necessary. Therefore, while the unintended consequences of the pandemic, namely the physical violence, was considered exceptional, the disease itself did not mandate the level of response instituted by the government, nor was there any presence of foreign military during this period. Thus, the state’s actions ultimately created exceptional conditions, but the virus itself did not. Using a vernacular security lens, then, illustrates the centrality of the ways in which past experiences are drawn upon to better understand how ordinary people evaluate what constitutes exceptionality in a range of circumstances.

Economic hardship and mobility restrictions

Mobility restrictions and economic hardship were common during the civil conflict, Ebola and COVID-19. Food and eating are central to Sierra Leonean social and economic life and, thus, the ability to access it is frequently a barometer of exceptionality. People need to move around frequently in order to get food because the majority of people live hand to mouth, unable to afford to bulk buy food. Staple foods move across the country through different routes and people need to both buy and sell at local markets to sustain themselves. Therefore, while Sierra Leoneans have regularly experienced food and economic insecurities, certain aspects did signal exceptionality, but in different ways and as part of a broader continuum of economic struggle exacerbated by the backdrop of these three events.

During the civil conflict, and especially in the north, many of the narratives at that time centralized around the social and economic hardships, particularly in relation to food. One informant stated: ‘Food was a big problem, [there was] no water. It was difficult to cook because the smoke rising would signal the rebels’ (Interview 8). Interviewees often pointed to their greatest challenges relating to rebels looting food and livestock or having to go on food-finding missions for them. Conversely, the ability to recommence regular farming was a sign of recovery and normality (Martin, 2016). In her interview with a Makeni trader, Bolten (2012, 147) illustrates how Issa Sesay, the primary RUF commander at the end of the war, enabled traders to revive the market during their occupation and, as a result, was seen as an ally rather than an enemy. The food that was delivered to be sold, however, was in fact the result of looting in rural areas where one author’s interview informants were from. This speaks to the complexity and diverse views of these issues during the conflict. While the ability to obtain sustenance is central to everyday life and universally important to all Sierra Leoneans, experiences and perspectives of rebels varied significantly based on time, place and relationships.

During Ebola too, lumas (traditional markets in rural areas, which usually operate once a week) were banned for an entire year (August 2014–August 2015). As a result, most people were unable to sell their crops and obtain the necessary goods for cooking. In one very rural community in Northern Sierra Leone, it was a bad year for their pepper (chilli) crop – so much so that it became a running joke in the village that the crops were infected with Ebola. Combined with the fact that people were, for many months, unable to sell in a nearby town, it was very difficult to get food during this period, leaving people hungry. Some areas did not allow osusus (group farming), while others were more relaxed on this rule. A section chief said that due to public gathering restrictions he did not allow too many people to come together at one time, so the crops were affected. Such experiences of the inability to obtain food, sell or farm served as reminders of experiences during the conflict, when many people stopped farming (or farmed at night) for fear of being spotted by rebels. Many interviewees highlighted how the Ebola epidemic made them remember the terrible food they ate during the conflict, such as raw cassava, and the long periods they went without rice (the staple food).

Movement restrictions during Ebola also impacted people’s ability to collect remittances from family members in larger cities, who bring money and goods when they come to visit. One interviewee stated: ‘I suffered a lot because I was unable to farm properly and the money did not come, if they don’t come then life is hard’ (Interview 9). Another person said: ‘In normal life, relatives come, give gifts but during Ebola they weren’t coming, and it affects our livelihood. We can’t go meet them or receive them’ (Interview 10). Many people said that due to economic hardship during this period, they were unable to send their children back to school when it restarted in April 2015. ⁵ One person explained that their son was supposed to graduate from university, but he was unable to due to the bad crop output and sales during Ebola (Interview 10). Therefore, both national and local bylaws significantly impacted ordinary activities at certain points during these periods. During both periods, these experiences ebbed and flowed for communities and proved worse for some people than others. However, the fact that interviewees consistently cited these challenges signalled that access to food contributed to understanding the extent to which people considered a period exceptional or not.

Similarly, the government-imposed COVID-19 measures had negative consequences for people’s everyday livelihoods. Restricted movements – including total and inter-district lockdowns – and the closure of schools, places of worship and weekly village markets also had negative social and economic consequences. One man stated that ‘There was not enough time to prepare for the three-day lockdown, so we did not have enough food, we also had our grandchildren with us so that made it harder’ (Interview 11). Such negative consequences were experienced more by some people than others. One trader stated:

I used to travel from Makeni to Freetown to get the fish I sell but because of the lockdown I am unable to do this now. Others pass the checkpoints because they have money to pay them [the authorities] but I cannot afford this. So, I am no longer trading as I did before. (Interview 12)

Thus, certain people – those with the financial capability and status – were able to negotiate their way past roadblocks and thus escape the negative effects of restricted movement. These people were also better able to prepare for and cope with total lockdowns, as compared with those who did not have the resources to, for example, purchase significant amounts of food in advance: ‘I was able to buy enough provisions for my family ahead of the lockdown. I also have neighbours that would help out if we needed them, so I knew we would be okay’ (Interview 13). This section thus further demonstrates how employing a vernacular security lens illustrates that while the characteristics constituting crisis for different Sierra Leoneans may be similar, the exceptional ways and means of how people experienced these periods were diverse.

Conclusion

While there has been extensive literature highlighting the politicization of crises and (states of) emergencies, there has been much less that explores how these are experienced and constituted from the perspective of ordinary citizens, and particularly those in Global South contexts where crisis is frequently embedded in everyday life. Employing a vernacular security lens to such contexts thus allows for much more nuance and diversity to emerge, illustrating how ordinary perspectives, everyday experiences and exceptional periods ultimately converge to construct different notions of crisis and emergency. Further, these perspectives are neither homogenous nor stagnant, nor do they always align with more global or outsider narratives about these concepts.

In Sierra Leone, we examined ordinary Sierra Leonean perspectives (primarily from northern communities) to better understand, in a context where crisis is chronic for the vast majority of people, what constitutes as exceptional. Ultimately, certain characteristics, such as death and physical violence, military intervention and state–society relations, and economic hardship and military restrictions were not by themselves considered signs of crisis for ordinary citizens; rather, by analysing them in context, it demonstrated more precisely what made them exceptional (or not). For example, death in itself does not define exceptionality in a country where death is an everyday normality; however, the ways people die and the number of deaths contribute to the magnitude of a particular situation. Sierra Leone’s experience of an array of state and military interventions, including SoEs and lockdowns, means that these also do not necessarily signal a crisis to ordinary people; however, the ways in which these are implemented and responded to can result in exceptional circumstances, such as physical violence between those breaking lockdowns and those implementing them. This highlights how past experiences influence how ordinary people experience and evaluate what constitutes exceptionality. Finally, the everyday reality of economic hardship also means that this does not alone constitute an exceptionality; however, when coupled with mobility restrictions that prevent people from accessing food on a daily basis, this can be considered exceptional.

The vernacular security approach, then, demonstrates how and why there are disconnects between state declarations and ordinary citizens. We would thus argue that Sierra Leone acts as a good example of a place where state declarations of emergencies cannot necessarily ‘speak for’ the experiences or perspectives of its citizens. They have their own criteria for what this means and how it manifests. Such perspectives should be taken seriously as they have their own logics, which can help to better understand and design more locally appropriate response mechanisms.

On a final note, the article also raises further questions about how we can understand exceptionality and crisis embedded within the everyday. Many Sierra Leoneans would currently tell you that the extremely high inflation rates and poor price control are having a significant impact on food and fuel prices. This cost-of-living crisis constitutes a sense of ongoing exceptionalism due to the serious disruptions and ripple effects it has on their everyday livelihoods. In fact, many Sierra Leoneans would currently argue that this ‘everyday crisis’ is a far more pervasive problem than the exceptional periods discussed in this article. Exceptionalism can thus also be slow, steady, and become integrated into the everyday. Therefore, studies about crisis and emergency need to move beyond state politics and be more attuned to local contexts, ordinary people’s perspectives and everyday issues. We can then begin to better understand the continuums, convergences and diversity of the exceptional and the everyday.