In the late 1980s, after a decade of civil war, civilians in Mozambique had had enough. Yet their choice of resistance to the enduring violence took a unique form. Manuel Antonío, a traditional healer claiming to be in possession of a vaccine that turned enemies’ bullets into water, organized civilians into a new militia called Naparama. The militia received little to no support from either the state or foreign actors. Rather, it was initiated and sustained by local civilians exasperated after years of predatory violence.

Naparama fighters eschewed the use of guns in favor of armas brancas: spears, arrows, machetes, or knives. They advanced on rebel forces marching openly in a line, singing songs as they proceeded into combat. The Renamo rebels were so shocked by these tactics that they sometimes fled before engaging in combat, perhaps taking Naparama’s brazenness as evidence that the rumors of their supernatural powers must be true (pp. 80-81).

Why did Naparama emerge when it did within Mozambique’s lengthy civil war? Why did it spread where it did across Zambezia and Nampula provinces? And how did it recruit civilians to engage in such daring and dangerous action?

These are the questions taken up by Corinna Jentzsch in Violent Resistance: Militia Formation and Civil War in Mozambique. The book conceptualizes Naparama as an example of a broader phenomenon of “community-initiated militias” in the context of civil war. These militias are distinct from other armed combatants in that they emerge specifically as “countermovements” against insurgents (p. 2) and are formed by members of the community, not by the state. Having identified this unique type of armed actor, Jentzsch highlights three factors that are crucial to understanding their emergence and growth: patterns of territorial contestation, the unity of local elites, and the resonance of militia repertoires with local traditions.

The book takes aim at a common oversimplification in which civil wars are seen as dyadic, involving only rebels and regime. It advances a research agenda on “third actors” that have too often been overlooked in the study of armed conflict. When scholars do examine militias, they frequently emphasize the influence of the state or of foreign sponsors. Violent Resistance offers an important corrective here, showing how militia formation can be a grassroots process by civilians seeking to protect themselves in the midst of civil war. In this way, the book also makes a contribution to an emerging literature on civilian agency in war. But while prior studies have largely focused on nonviolent strategies, this book shows how civilians can take up arms and form their own militia for protection.

The first two chapters follow a standard pattern of introduction and theory. They introduce the concept of citizen-initiated militias, the puzzle of their origins and trajectories, the key explanatory variables, and a qualitative research design that leverages controlled comparison and process-tracing within Mozambique’s civil war.

Chapter 3 marks a significant departure, as the author steps back to reflect on the challenges of fieldwork in post-conflict settings. In it, we learn that while the civil war had ended, Jentszch’s research was conducted amidst ongoing tensions as former Naparama members lobbied for demobilization benefits. In fact, days after her first series of interviews in one village, four villagers were arrested, an event the village secretary attributes to her presence (p. 31). The chapter offers an in-depth discussion of both the ethical dilemmas of the research, as well as the methodological challenges that come from interview subjects using the research process to advance personal agendas. Jentzsch concludes that “what communities ask for is not that researchers stay away from them, but that they are aware of the political nature of their work” (p. 43). While a wave of recent articles and books have called for conflict scholars to engage in greater reflexivity, far fewer works have actually put this into practice, and when they do, it is often consigned to an appendix. Jentzsch’s engagement with these difficult questions is substantial and placed prominently in the book. The chapter stands well on its own and is a must-read for all scholars engaging in conflict-related field research.

After an overview of Mozambique’s civil war in Chapter 4, Chapters 5–7 sequentially address the three main questions of the book: when, where, and how the Naparama militia emerged and spread. Chapter 5 argues that it was a military stalemate that made the emergence of Naparama possible. Specifically, it was a stalemate that involved contested territorial control with high levels of violence as each side’s forces advanced and retreated. The resulting brutality inflicted on civilians created an impetus for them to take up arms on their own, while the inability of the state to maintain territorial control on its own made it willing to accept the arrival of a new armed force.

Chapter 6 traces the spread of Naparama, arguing that diffusion of the group occurred through processes of learning and migration between districts with common ethnic, ideological, cultural, and historic bonds (p. 113). Crucially, it argues that local elites must be unified in order to build trust in the militia and prevent its co-optation for personal gain.

Chapter 7 focuses on the rituals, rites, and symbols Naparama used to build popular support as it spread. Indeed, it is the resonance of Naparama’s fantastical and spiritual narrative—the magical vaccine, Antonío’s supposed Christ-like resurrection—with local traditions and beliefs that made it a more compelling alternative to state-backed militias that parroted the regime’s secular socialist doctrine. The interview-based research at the heart of this chapter is especially compelling, with vivid quotes from civilians who witnessed the arrival of Naparama in their village. It reinforces a unique theoretical argument about the power of narratives, scripts, and repertoires that ought to lay the foundation for conflict scholars to take these more seriously going forward.

The incredible richness of the direct testimony from civilians who were forced to weigh difficult and dangerous options in the midst of civil war is one of the greatest strengths of the book. It is the result not only of the author’s own careful research, but also the methodological choice to pursue an in-depth study of a single armed group. Overall, the payoff is largely worth it, especially in the vivid depictions of Naparama’s arrival in new districts and civilians’ reactions to it. But it does require some inevitable trade-offs.

In evaluating its theoretical claims alongside alternatives, Violent Resistance appears limited at times by insufficient internal variation. While the book leverages changes over time, district-level comparisons, and process-tracing to maximize analytic leverage, the evidence is still spread somewhat thin in an effort to tackle what are essentially three distinct causal explanations. The arguments pertaining to the role of elite division appear to be the least developed and most questionable. We only see an example of divided elites in the district of Namarroi in Chapter 6, and the focus is more on the direct relationship between the leaders of Naparama and local Frelimo forces (p. 134). Furthermore, the outcome here seems to be equally well explained by a security environment that was less threatening for both civilians and Frelimo forces (p. 133).

Relatedly, the early battlefield results of Naparama forces appear to play a key part of the story of the militia’s emergence and trajectory. Early successes are likely important generally for shaping civilian attitudes about the possibility of protection through violent resistance. This seems especially so in the case of Naparama given their unique spiritual narrative. Throughout the case studies, Naparama’s ability to prove itself on the battlefield within the first months of its arrival in a district appears crucial to sustaining local support (e.g., in Namarroi [p. 134], in Mecuburi [p. 143]). The charismatic leadership of Manuel Antonío also appears to play an important role, yet is underexplored, despite the fact that his departure from a district often precipitates disintegration, and the militia as a whole falls apart following his death in December 1991.

Another drawback is a limited ability to assess the degree to which the argument, and even the broader phenomenon of civilian-initiated militias, travels outside of Mozambique. The book provides ample examples of militias in the context of civil war, rightly and effectively highlighting the prevalence of third actors in conflict. But to my count, only three other examples of civilian-initiated militias beyond Naparama are identified (in Peru, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, p. 2). Is this the extent of the phenomenon? The concluding chapter dedicates a couple of pages specifically to Sierra Leone. But the similarity of the case—down to the same myth of a bullet-melting vaccine (p. 180)—limits our ability to imagine the application of the book’s analytical frameworks to a broader set of cases. In particular, I found myself wondering what different kinds of socially resonant repertoires and scripts look like in different social and cultural contexts.

I also wondered about the degree to which the dynamics explored in Violent Resistance might apply to third actors beyond “civilian-initiated militias,” which appear to be somewhat rare. More common, perhaps, may be groups that exist prior to the war, but that may take on new roles of protection once armed conflict breaks out. The Sadrists in Iraq come to mind as but one example. Can we understand such transitions through the lens of stalemates, repertoires, and diffusion? Or do the pre-existing organizational structures of such groups allow them to take up armed resistance more easily, without all of the necessary conditions required for those starting from scratch in the midst of conflict?

Finally, while the book positions itself primarily within the militia literature, I would have liked to see more engagement with scholarship on civilian agency. Despite the rich interviews with civilians, the book tells the story primarily from the perspective of Naparama emerging and spreading where conditions are ripe. But we don’t see from the civilian side the menu of other options available to them. How should we locate the strategy of Violent Resistance within other strategies of “autonomy” that have recently been illuminated by Oliver Kaplan (2017), Jana Krause (2018), and others?

My lingering questions at the end of Violent Resistance largely reflect my fascination with the puzzles it presents and opportunities for future research. The book outlines a new research program, offering concepts, puzzles, and explanatory factors that are sure to lay the foundation for numerous studies to follow. And it does so with immersive interviewing, gripping prose, and thoughtful reflection that sets the bar for the qualitative study of civil conflict.