MINUSMA and the Militarization of UN Peacekeeping

ABSTRACT MINUSMA, the UN peace operation in Mali, represents a new development in peace missions, due to the insecure transnational context in which it has evolved and its mandate to collaborate with counterterrorist forces in the region. The goal of this paper is to study this new development, using Enloe’s feminist theorization of the concept of militarization. I base my analysis on an understanding of militarization as a social process that can be adapted or contested. Grounded in a qualitative methodology, I study MINUSMA and its peacekeepers in order to identify how the process of militarization takes place within/through the mission. My principal argument is that the context of robust peacekeeping, combined with the implications of collaboration with counterterrorist operations and the reengagement of NATO troop contributing countries, creates a space in which militarization is reinforced for the mission and its peacekeepers and that this impacts how they interact with one another and what practices they favour.


Introduction
This paper aims to examine tensions and resistance around processes of militarization involving the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Mali, the Mission multidimensionnelle intégrée des Nations unies pour la stabilisation au Mali (MINUSMA). MINUSMA is a model example of a contemporary multidimensional UN peace operation that has as its goal not only ending violence, but also accomplishing political tasks and helping to establish a state structure. But MINUSMA has also evolved in the context of the global war on terror and operates in a highly unstable environment which pushes UN peacekeeping toward stabilization and peace enforcement. 1 The high level of insecurity has had a direct impact on how peacekeepers perceive and interact with both the local population and one another.
In this paper, I explore how militarization is unfolding at the mission level and how civilian and military MINUSMA peacekeepers experience it as a social process, including the tensions and adaptations it undergoes and engenders. My hope is to contribute to an understanding of militarization in IR, specifically in relation to peacekeeping. I argue that the context of robust peacekeeping, together with the implications of the mandate of collaboration with counterterrorist operations and the reengagement of NATO troop contributing countries (TCCs), creates a space in which militarization is reinforced for the mission and its peacekeepers, in tension with civilian practices and goals. This tension results from the different objectives being pursued by different peacekeepers and their projects, and their fluid positioning within the process of militarization. This paper begins with an overview of the study of militarization followed by a presentation of my theoretical framework. In the second section, I present my datacollection process and methodology. The third section consists of an overview of the mission and its mandate. The fourth section presents an analysis of MINUSMA's mission, the militarization of its mandate, and how peacekeepers navigate these realities. Lastly, in my conclusion I reflect upon the impact of normative and operational factors and on future avenues for research. This paper has three objectives. Theoretically, I will propose an analysis of militarization proper to peacekeeping operations (PKOs). Empirically, I present data on civilian and military peacekeepers working under a mandate of collaboration with counterterrorist operations, which is a very recent context in the history of peace operations. Finally, on a normative level, my research will illuminate points of tension between the goals of a peacekeeping mission and processes of militarization.

The Study of Militarization
In the study of international interventions and militarization, Pandolfi argues that the categories of humanitarian and military have become blurred since the 1990s. 2 This ambiguity undermines humanitarian intervention with the responsibility to protect emerging from it as a logical development. 3 Parallel to this ambiguity in humanitarian contexts, Pugh argues that a 'militarization of peace' has been occurring since the 1990s, ever since the UN approved peacekeeping operations being carried out in contexts where other actors are engaged in peace-enforcement operations. 4 The institutional turning point for this development was the Brahimi report in 2000. Pugh explains that, since then, the idea that UN peacekeeping operations and 'proxy enforcement' operations are mutually reinforcing is not questioned, even if, on the ground, tensions have emerged in relation to the protection of civilians and humanitarian aims. 5 Karlsrud, examining UN stabilization missions such as MINUSMA, argues that stabilization mandates imply the use of military assets. 6 In the case of robust peacekeeping missions, where the use of force is authorized in a context where there is no peace to keep, such mandates create 'a new generation of peacekeeping operation'. 7 Médecins sans frontières argues that this approach of interweaving humanitarian and development activities with peace and counterterrorist strategies amounts to instrumentalizing humanitarian action for military aims. 8 This limits the scope of humanitarian action, with direct consequences for the local population in need. In studying militarization in peacekeeping, my research is part of the stream of literature examining this development in peace interventions, how militarization is used (or rejected) as a resource, and what the consequences are for peacekeepers and their interactions.
The pioneering work of Vagts on militarism paved the way for an understanding of the influence of the military on societies, beyond the strict use of state military force. 9 Since then, militarism has been studied as a political, sociological, ideological, philosophical, and economic phenomenon, pertaining to objects and areas as varied as discourses, national budgets and GDP, state sovereignty, masculinities, and domestic violence. 10 Mabee and Vucetic identify three types of militarism: nation-state militarism, civil society militarism, and neoliberal militarism. 11 It will be noted that two of these exist or originate outside of the bounds of the state, but despite their differences, all three are based on the use of organized violence. According to Enloe, militarism 'is a concept that refers to a complex package of ideas that, all together, foster military values in both military and civilian affairs'. 12 Militarism draws on a particular gender construction and on specific ideas related to protection, hierarchization, 'the other', human nature, and states. But she also adds that the concept of militarism, while useful, is too static to explain evolving phenomena that vary depending on time and context. She therefore suggests instead the concept of militarization. 13 I am similarly interested in studying processes, and therefore seek to examine militarization rather than militarism.
In spite of recent quantitative interest in militarization, the vast majority of analysis on the topic to date is qualitative. 14 In security studies, recent research in the geographical context of the Sahel argues that the concept is of limited use to understanding a security assemblage that includes development and humanitarian initiatives, resistance to militarism, and 'civilianized' practices. 15 This approach understands militarization as a one-dimensional concept, according to which we can simply observe higher or lower levels, measured in terms of more or less military activity. However, as demonstrated in this article, when this concept is used with a feminist theoretical framework and with a focus on interactions between people, it provides insights that allow us to understand militarization as a social process and relational product, which goes beyond the one-dimensional approach.

Conceptualizing Militarization
Militarism and militarization are central concepts in feminist scholarship about security and war. 16 Using this scholarship in my analysis allows me to problematize the military/civilian and war/peace binaries of security discourses. 17 Drawing on feminist approaches in IR, I base my research on the idea that militarization is a process of transformation that consists of more than just the use of the military, and that it can therefore be observed in everyday life and social relationships. In this article, I base my analysis on Enloe's theorization of militarization: '[Militarization] is the step-by-step social, political, and psychological process by which any person, any group, or any society absorbs the ideas and resultant practices of militarism'. 18 Militarization can happen to something or someone and occurs in our everyday life. It has to be understood as a process that can be charted over time and that involves civilian actors. 19 'To become militarized is to adopt militaristic values (e.g. a belief in hierarchy, obedience, and the use of force) and priorities as one's own, to see military solutions as particularly effective, to see the world as a dangerous place best approached with militaristic attitudes'. 20 This definition approaches militarization as socially constructed, allowing for contextual and historical changes to be taken into 14 For example, see: Bonn International Center for Conversion, Global Militarization Index, all years from 2014 on. 15 Frowd and Sandor, "Militarism and Its Limits." 16 Enloe,Globalization and Militarism;Cockburn,"Gender Relations";Sjoberg and Via,Gender,War,and Militarism. 17 Prügl and Tickner,"Feminist International Relations." 18 Enloe,Globalization and Militarism,11. 19 Enloe writes: 'Most militarized people are civilian." Enloe,Globalization and Militarism,18 20 Ibid.,18. account and also for a more sociological focus on politics beyond official policies. In this way, feminist scholarship demonstrates that militarization is not easy to measure and is ultimately about social relationships and the normalization of war. 21 It is not a straightforward process, it consists of practices, and it involves civilian actors.
This theorization allows me to study processes reinforcing militarization that exist simultaneous to resistance to it, recognizing militarization as a multilayered process. As such, I am also engaging with recent debates in feminist IR. 22 When using the concept of militarization, I do not hold that a pure civilian stage or a completely demilitarized context exist. Additionally, when highlighting specific moments and practices related to militarization, I am not arguing that contradictions cannot exist at the same time at the mission level and in peacekeeping more broadly. Thus, I examine the process of militarization within a UN mission and the challenges it encounters with the understanding that it is also subject to resistance, contradictions, and adaptations, while focusing on the peacekeepers who experience it and their interactions with one another. Following Enloe's reasoning, it is possible to pinpoint conditions favourable to militarization that are also relevant to the circumstances of peacekeepers. 23 Proximity to the military institution is one condition favourable to militarization. Indeed, having a job in the military, living in a place where the economy is driven by the military, living on a military base or with a member of the military makes people more inclined to accept and participate in the reproduction of militaristic positions and decisions. Perception of danger is also a significant factor: such a perception, as well as the trauma resulting from real attacks, encourages militarized solutions and a militaristic mindset being accepted as the most appropriate responses (hierarchization, use of force, power relationship between the protectors and the protected). On the other hand, the process of resistance to militarization involves reducing hierarchies and fostering a worldview not centred on enemies or the use of force. Analysing my data, I am able to highlight conditions favourable to militarization and resistance to it in the context of MINUSMA.
I therefore study militarization on two levels. On the macro level, the mission, I examine the connection between the geopolitical context proper to MINUSMA and the Sahel, the mission mandate, and the perceived need for more militarized practices and technology. On this level of analysis, I focus on how the specific context of insecurity in Mali has led to decisions increasing the prevalence of military norms and practices. On the micro 21 Åhäll, "The Dance of Militarisation." 22 Mackenzie et al., "Can We Really." 23 Enloe, Globalization and Militarism. level, the peacekeepers, I highlight the everyday (the 'mundane', as Enloe puts it) habits and thoughts of peacekeepers while, following the example of Åhäll, paying particular attention to how bodies matter politically, how othering is constructed and reproduced. 24 I examine peacekeepers as individuals who interact with one another in the specific context of MINUSMA and also in the larger geopolitical context of the peace operation, analysing each in relation to the other. This back and forth between the macro and the micro is useful in order to study militarization not as something with a beginning and an end, but as a contested and negotiated process that similar actors can choose to relate to in different ways, depending on their different goals or former experiences.
This conceptualization of militarization addresses the relationship between the two different levels, the individual and the mission. Studying militarization as a social process in the context of MINUSMA, my analysis draws on the work of Mabee and Vucetic,Enloe,and Åhäll. 25 In developing their typology of militarism, Mabee and Vucetic underline the 'need to move back and forth between the micro and the macro to get a fuller picture of militarism, charting out connections between micro-contexts, the ways in which guiding ideas of militarism travel, and how they are reinterpreted and applied in other contexts'. 26 This analytical approach proves to also be useful in the study of militarization. It is necessary to have a macro understanding in order to connect different contexts and have a broad picture of what militarization is, but it is just as necessary to underline the specificities of the given context in order to understand the local adaptations and forms of resistance related to processes of militarization, as well as to recognize the agency of different actors. When studying militarization at the mission level, I interpret the institutional UN response to the Malian context and the adaptations around it. At the individual level, I examine individuals in relation to one another; I do not examine individual behaviour or traits.
On the individual level of analysis, my research builds on the argument that the creation of soldiers, through their training and their socialization, involves specific ideas and practices about hierarchies, difference, and violence, which are in contradiction with the requirement of making peace. 27 Yet PKOs are also multinational sites involving soldiers, police, and civilians in efforts to stabilize armed conflicts and establish peace. 28 Additionally, 24 Enloe, "The Mundane Matters"; Åhäll, "The Dance of Militarisation,"158. 25 Mabee and Vucetic, "Varieties of Militarism"; Enloe, "The Mundane Matters"; Åhäll, "The Dance of Militarisation." 26 Mabee and Vucetic, "Varieties of Militarism." 27 On this subject, Sandra Whitworth notes that the creation of soldiers, as people who are ready to kill and die for the state, involves the production of violent heterosexual masculinity, denigration of difference, and the capacity to dehumanize 'the enemy." Whitworth, Men, Militarism, and UN Peacekeeping, 186 28 Ben-Ari and Elron, "Blue Helmets and White Armor." MINUSMA is a noteworthy mission, as Global North countries, particularly European TCCs working together in NATO in the context of counterinsurgency operations, are providing more troops, staff officers, and high-technology materiel than they have in any other African mission since 1996. 29 This reengagement of NATO TCCs in a robust peacekeeping context affects how they act within and interact with the mission. Most of the literature studying the relationship between soldiers and civilians is focused on actors from different organizations working together (e.g. a national army and an NGO), but a UN peace operation is special in that it combines soldiers, civilians, and police under a common mandate. Analysing this relationship based on their interpretation of their mandate and of the context allows me to frame the issue in a different way, as the military is internal to the operation, which makes militarization an intrinsic feature of everyday encounters.

Data and Methodology
To study how peacekeepers understand militarization in MINUSMA and how it impacts their daily interactions, I based my research on a feminist methodological perspective. 30 I chose to conduct a case study and to use qualitative methods such as participant observation and interviews, both in order to produce an analysis anchored in people's narratives and experiences and because such methods are the most suitable for the study of social processes. I interpret my data using the concept of militarization. This methodology is useful to study tensions within, but also resistance to and adaptations of, militarization.
The data I analyse comes from three months of fieldwork in Mali at the end of 2018. During this time, I had the opportunity to partially experience how the peacekeepers live, to observe civilian peacekeepers while accompanying them in their activities with the local population, to build a durable rapport with some of them, and to interview peacekeepers of all categories in the camps where they work and sometimes live. For this article, I draw on the 41 semi-directed interviews I conducted with 46 military and civilian peacekeepers based in different locations (Bamako, Gao, Kidal, Mopti, and Sevare). Amongst those interviewed were 28 civilian and 18 military peacekeepers. 31 The interviews with civilian peacekeepers focused on their work experience in MINUSMA, their careers in the UN, and their relationships 29 Karlsrud and Smith, "Europe's Return to UN." 30 Tickner, "Feminism meets International Relations." 31 Of the 28 civilian peacekeepers (international staff, national staff, and contractors), 8 were from Mali, 4 from other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, 10 from Europe, and the 6 remaining were from North America, South Asia, the Arabian peninsula, the Caribbean, and Australia. Of the 18 military peacekeepers interviewed, 4 were from Europe (including 3 from a non-NATO country) and 14 from Canada.
with their colleagues, superiors, other categories of peacekeepers, and the Malian population. The interviews with uniformed peacekeepers focused on the differences between their duties in their countries of origin and those in a peace operation, their experiences in other UN missions, and their relationships with other categories of peacekeepers and the Malian population. The focus of the interviews is relational, highlighting social practices. I only examine the experiences of official peacekeepers even though private security personnel play an important role in UN PKOs and are intimately involved in processes of globalization and militarization. 32 Indeed, I observed them being part of MINUSMA as service providers, but also as security providers, for example at the entrance of gates, wearing blue helmets and bulletproof vests in Bamako, but the scope of this article does not allow for deeper analysis of this aspect of the mission. The interview guides were inspired by the life-history method and aimed to understand what it is to be a peacekeeper in MINUSMA, with a focus on different power relations and the peacekeepers' awareness of the militarized context. 33 As had been promised for interviewees who requested it, I returned to them the part of their interview transcripts used in this paper to give them an opportunity to clarify their thoughts if they felt the need to do so. Only one did so. The interviewees were selected by a mix of snowball sampling, direct contact through email and LinkedIn, and the recommendations of authorities in command. My interactions and the interviews took place in French or English, or a combination of both. Because of issues of access, Canadian soldiers are overrepresented amongst my military interviewees, which turned out to be an asset for my research, even though the Canadian contingent only participated in MINUSMA for one year. During the Cold War, Canada was an important actor in peacekeeping, and this became an integral part of Canadian national identity. 34 By the end of the 1990s, following the difficulties encountered by the UN mission in the Balkans, public outrage at the torture and death of a Somali teenager at the hands of Canadian peacekeepers, and the spectacle of UN forces being powerless to stop the genocide in Rwanda, Canada stopped contributing contingents to PKOs, though it still sent a small number of police and military advisors to accompany various missions. 35 From 2001 on, military efforts were mainly focused on the war in Afghanistan, a counterinsurgency operation. For these reasons, Canadian military personnel can provide insights that are highly relevant to my research, as their operational and training experience is centred on counterinsurgency and their experience of international cooperation has occurred within NATO. Additionally, the Canadian 32 Krahmann and Leander, "Contracting Security"; Enloe, Globalization and Militarism. 33 Barrett, "The Organizational Construction of Hegemonic Masculinity." 34 Granatstein, Marshall, Panneton, and Foot, "Canada and Peacekeeping." 35  contingent was there to provide aeromedical evacuation coverage and transport aviation support, which are the kind of specialized contributions that the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) has requested of Global North member states in recent years. For the vast majority of Canadian peacekeepers interviewed, MINUSMA was their first peacekeeping experience. This is valuable data that can help us to understand the adaptations and experiences of NATO TCCs reengaging in UN peacekeeping practices.
The use of ethnographic tools affords access to the experiences and subjectivity of peacekeepers, their practices related to their everyday tasks, their living conditions, their norms, and the tensions, contradictions, and adaptations that they themselves experience as part of a PKO. They help to highlight power relations, friction, and collaboration between different categories of personnel, and as such help us to understand how militarization is seen as necessary by some, while it is criticized by others. In interpreting the data collected during my fieldwork, my goal is to focus on the meaning that peacekeepers give to their experiences. In addition to these first-hand sources, I complement the data collected with literature produced by the UN, INGOs, and material produced by MINUSMA.
To study the relationship between macro and micro I must first study the militarization process regarding MINUSMA's mandate itself, and then examine how peacekeepers understand and navigate it. For instance, in the adaptations of military peacekeepers and the tensions regarding civilian practices, which affect how they view and interact with their colleagues of other categories.

Mandate and objectives of MINUSMA
MINUSMA began as a response to the 2012 conflict in the north of Mali, which involved the Government of Mali (GoM), Tuareg separatists, and jihadists. Mistrust between northern separatists and the GoM has existed since Mali's independence in 1960; the fourth Tuareg rebellion began in 2012. The separatists accuse the central government in Bamako of neglecting the populations living in the northern territories and ignoring their need for economic development and political representation. 36 The mission was established by the UN Security Council in 2013. Today, MINUSMA deploys more than 15,000 peacekeepers, including 12,877 military, 1,718 police, and 1,180 civilians. 37 The mission headquarters are in the capital Bamako, far from the north and the centre, which are the most unstable parts of the country. Most of the military peacekeepers come from countries in the Global South, with those coming from neighbouring countries facing 36 Chauzal and Van Damme, The Roots of Mali's Conflict. 37 MINUSMA, "Personnel." the most danger. 38 Despite efforts by the UN, women are in the minority, especially in the military and the police. 39 They are more numerous in the civilian category, but outside of the capital their numbers drop again. The main mandate of MINUSMA is to support the implementation of the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, a 2015 peace agreement between the GoM and Malian stakeholders. Parallel to this support role, MINUSMA is a mission to restore state authority and the rule of law throughout the national territory. MINUSMA's mandate focuses on national insecurity, but the mission is situated in a context of transnational threatsorganized crime and jihadism. As such, MINUSMA is also part of a network of international and regional parties which are involved in the global war on terror (FC-G5 Sahel 40 and the French operation Barkhane). The specific context of insecurity has at times been instrumentalized by the Malian security forces as a justification for human rights abuses and has led to a dramatic rise in intercommunal violence in the centre of the country since 2016. 41 This violent development forced MINUSMA to broaden its mandate to include the centre of the country. S/RES/2531, which renewed MINUSMA's mandate in 2020, clearly notes the importance of stability and security in Mali for the stability and security of the region of the Sahel, West Africa, and North Africa. MINUSMA therefore supports the GoM and different parties working toward peace and the development of a liberal democratic Malian state while also participating in regional counterterrorist activities. The specific context of asymmetric threats and insecurity has an impact on the militarization of the mission and on how the peacekeepers react to this, as will be analysed in the following sections.

Militarization of the Mission
The dangers posed by asymmetric threats are significant. MINUSMA's peacekeepers risk their lives, especially when working outside of the capital Bamako. However, the level of danger is unevenly distributed between African and Global North TCCs. 42 MINUSMA is the deadliest mission in the history of UN peacekeeping in terms of peacekeepers being directly targeted, and it is the Chadian contingent that has suffered the most fatalities. 43 The majority of peacekeepers whom I interviewed stated that as part of MINUSMA they are in danger even if they do not always feel in danger. Military peacekeepers explain that they are well-prepared for attacks. Most of the civilians interviewed know a colleague who experienced an attack, and the 2015 attack on the Radisson in Bamako is still a reminder for many that anything can happen. 44 Given the insecure environment, MINUSMA is encouraged to adopt a robust stance and to cooperate with the other security forces in the area for mutual benefit. In 2016, after two years of being targeted by an increasing number of attacks, S/RES/2295 provided the mandate 'to play a larger role in the broader effort to deal with terrorism in Mali'. 45 As a partner in regional security operations, MINUSMA's mandate includes not only exchanging information with and supporting the Malian Defense and Security Forces (MDSF) and European training operations but also to do the same with the FC-G5 Sahel and French Barkhane regional counterterrorist operations. In doing so, MINUSMA plays a part within a theoretical 'division of labour': peacekeepers are supposed to deal with the political challenges obstructing peace while the French military is supposed to fight terrorists. 46 In practice, such a tidy division is not possible. First, as stated by a Joint Mission Analysis Centre (JMAC) senior officer, the dichotomous label 'terrorist' does not capture the complexity of situations of people who interact with or consider themselves jihadists or the fluid composition of the northern armed groups; furthermore, it blurs the lines concerning people involved in transnational organized criminal activities. 47 Thus, the boundaries that are supposed to demarcate the national partners or the beneficiaries of MINUSMA from the enemies of the international operations are not at all clear. Second, by exchanging information with and doing as much as possible to support Barkhane and FC-G5 Sahel, the MINUSMA peace operation becomes an active player in counterterrorist operations. Third, with its mandate as a stabilization operation and in a context where peace is not foreseeable in the short or middle term, combined with the rise of robust peacekeeping, MINUSMA is a vector in the normalization of military means to stabilize a country. 48 This in turn has an impact on the theoretical 'division of 43 As of January 31, 2021, 139 peacekeepers had lost their lives as a result of being directly targeted by hostile acts. United Nations, Department of Peace Operations, "Fatalities by Mission and Incident Type' and 'Fatalities by Nationality and Mission." The last mission to have such a high number of fatalities of this type was ONUC, which operated from 1960 to 1964. 44 Searcey and Nossiter, "Deadly Siege Ends." 45 Karlsrud, "Towards UN Counter-Terrorism Operations?" 46 Charbonneau, "Intervention in Mali." 47 Interview 9, Bamako, Oct. 24, 2018translated from French. 48 Karlsrud, "The UN at War." labour'. Indeed, counterterrorist aims and political tasks are now interlinked. These new orientations are the result of multiple PKOs where peacekeepers were powerless to help those they were supposed to be protecting or to defend themselves from attacks. They are a reaction to public outrage and to the desire of TCCs to keep their troops safe. Nonetheless, these orientations, combined with the specific context of asymmetric threats, entangle peacekeepers in dynamics regarding the use of force. Fourth and finally, some of the TCCs providing specialized capabilities in MINUSMA also bring with them know-how and practices from previous counterinsurgency operations. These Global North TCCs, such as Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, which also work together within NATO, have been shaped by their experiences over the last twenty years in counterinsurgency contexts and bring this knowledge with them to MINUSMA. 49 Formal discussions about UN peace operations and counterterrorism show that the subject does not enjoy consensus among member states. 50 Pointing to the role of intelligence and the connections with Barkhane, Karlsrud writes that, 'Irrespective of these discussions, MINUSMA may already be in a counterterrorism mode'. 51 I would go further, and argue that the relationship with the counterterrorist French mission and the capabilities necessary for intelligence gathering and analysis are giving MINUSMA a role in counterterrorist activities in Mali and are strengthening the connection between militarization and peacekeeping in the mission practices. MINUSMA is not a counterterrorist operation, but it is playing an active role in counterterrorist activities.
The complexity of multidimensional missions, combining robust mandates, mandates of stabilization and protection of civilians, necessitates specialized capabilities concerning intelligence. 52 In UN peacekeeping operations, the use of intelligence was accepted in the 2000s and by the end of the decade had become standard. 53 On the mission level, PKOs have military, police, and civilian personnel dedicated to collecting and analysing information. 54 In MINUSMA, Rietjens and de Waar write that, 'the UN enacted an unprecedented increase in its intelligence capacity'. 55 This was accompanied by an increased importance and autonomy of NATO TCCs within the military component, along with an increase in technological assets. The increased importance of intelligence in MINUSMA generated 49 Ibid. 50 Karlsrud, "Towards UN Counter-Terrorism Operations?" 51 Ibid., 1224. 52 Kuele and Cepik, "Intelligence Support." 53 Duursma and Karlsrud, "Predictive Peacekeeping"; Dorn, "Intelligence-Led Peacekeeping." 54 In addition to U2 and JMAC, the Department of Safety and Security (DSS), the Joint Observation Centre (JOC), and UNPOL, for the police component, also produce intelligence and analysis. 55 Rietjens and de Waard, "UN Peacekeeping Intelligence." tensions within the mission due to the marginalization of non-NATO TCCs and the duplication of work being carried out by JMAC. 56 In the case of MINUSMA, the marginalization of non-NATO TCCs and of the civilian component is connected to militarization at a mission level, and is partly enabled by formal regulations regarding the sharing of information. Military personnel from NATO TCCs do not trust the practices of civilian peacekeepers and of MINUSMA, as they consider their communication channels to be insufficiently secure. Furthermore, NATO TCCs specifically expressed that it is challenging to share their products with African TCCs because of issues of language, differences in technical skills, or differences in culture regarding the role of intelligence. 57 This difficulty sharing information in the context of intelligence is not inevitable, however; compare, for instance, with the example of MONUSCO, where email was used to disseminate intelligence products and significant use was made of informal contacts. 58 As a result, the demilitarized way in which intelligence is dealt with in MONUSCO has led to a higher capacity to communicate information organically and horizontally between TCCs. In MINUSMA, barriers related to intelligence contribute to inequality between military peacekeepers. African peacekeepers, because they are on the frontlines, face danger and death much more than their colleagues from the Global North who are involved in intelligence activities. 59 Additionally, this uneven access to information undermines trust between NATO and non-NATO TCCs, as intelligence appears to be primarily of use to European troops, while it is the African forces who are suffering the most casualties. 60 MINUSMA is therefore enmeshed in processes which give more importance to military partners and military practices (gathering and sharing of intelligence), and which contribute to the militarized social production of 'us' and 'them/the enemy' and of hierarchies between TCCs. This militarization of MINUSMA's mandate and practices, the result of decisions by the UNSC made in response to the specific context of insecurity, has an impact on its personnel and their interactions. The following section will discuss the tensions, adaptations, and resistance that peacekeepers experience on an individual and relational level.

Peacekeepers: What Does it Mean to be Militarized in/by MINUSMA?
In this section, I analyse the relationships of military and civilian personnel and the understandings emerging from these interactions. Basing my 56 Ibid.; Abilova and Novosseloff, Demystifying Intelligence in UN Peace Operations. 57 Rietjens and de Waard, "UN Peacekeeping Intelligence." 58 Kuele and Cepik, "Intelligence Support,"56. 59 Cold-Ravnkilde, Albrecht, and Haugegaard, "Friction and Inequality among Peacekeepers in Mali." 60 Abilova and Novosseloff, Demystifying Intelligence in UN Peace Operations, 18-9. analysis on the perceptions of my interviewees, I am interested in exploring how peacekeepers make sense of the process of militarization outlined in the previous section and in identifying factors that reinforce militarization and those that encourage resistance to it. My fieldwork brought to light tensions and adaptations between civilian and military personnel within MINUSMA. Military actors feared that their norms and practices were becoming 'civilianized', while civilian actors felt they were obliged to adapt to the militarized context. Both categories of interviewees expressed the opinion that this situation impacted the quality of work being done. The understanding of their peacekeeping space as safe but besieged within a bigger dangerous space, also affected how peacekeepers interacted with one another. 'The idea that the world is a dangerous place is the seed of many militarizing processes'. 61 This is why, when interacting with peacekeepers, I asked about the level of danger and how they thought about their own safety; at the same time, these questions also provided an opening for them to talk about their feelings related to this level of insecurity and how it impacts their practices and interactions. Individual military and civilian peacekeepers expressed some ambivalence to militarization as a resource that they sometimes rely on and sometimes prefer to reject. Paying attention to dynamics that bring individuals into each other's worlds is necessary in order to develop an analysis that recognizes the fluidity of this social process.

Camp Castor: Military-Military Relationships and Tensions with Civilian Practices
This part of my analysis is mainly based on my observations of and interviews with military peacekeepers (from Canada, Germany, and the UK) working and living in Camp Castor and civilian peacekeepers based at MIN-USMA's Supercamp, both in Gao. Camp Castor is a MINUSMA military camp run by the German Bundeswehr, and the Supercamp is a mixed camp with civilian, police, and military peacekeepers. It is also where MIN-USMA's Sector East regional bureau is located. The core mission of the German military in Camp Castor is reconnaissance and analysis of the security situation. 62 The Bundeswehr has a technical agreement with the Canadian military, which paid to be there. There are four different camps in the zone between the airport and Gao city: Camp Castor, MINUSMA's Supercamp, a Malian armed forces (FAMa) camp, and a French Barkhane camp. It is easy to travel between camps, taking only a few minutes by vehicle to get from one gate to another, but generally, only people who have to meet with colleagues in other camps do so. 61 Enloe,Globalization and Militarism,171. 62 Dewitz, "Mali." I was able to discern two main dynamics. First, the militarymilitary relationships in Camp Castor and the militarization of the mandate combined to create a space in which the peacekeepers themselves reinforced the militarization of the mission. Having to work in what they see as a particularly hostile environment and only being in contact with TCCs with which they already work in NATO missions, makes them more prone to understand the mission in terms of its military assets, to push for military solutions to problems, and to judge their interactions with civilian peacekeepers and the civilian components of the mission through a military lens. Second, this last aspect leads to misunderstandings and sometimes even resistance amongst military peacekeepers regarding their role in the mission. They understand that a peacekeeping operation is not a military mission, but they are impatient when faced with certain civilian practices and this sometimes leads to resistance. Military actors do not engender militarization because they are military actors but because socialization with other military actors in this specific insecure context makes them think that militaristic solutions and practices are required. In doing so, they juxtapose their practices to civilian ones, reproducing hierarchization, othering, and the 'us/them' binary.
Inside Camp Castor, I mostly observed military personnel from Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. When I would note that the military composition of Camp Castor was that of a NATO camp, everybody always agreed, and sometimes it was the personnel themselves who would make the reference. The topic of NATO came up often in discussions and interviews when people were talking about their operational and deployment experience, or when they were explaining to me, in the context of their work in MINUSMA, what the difference was between working with an ally like Germany or a partner like Bangladesh. In this context, references to the Chinese soldiers were ambivalent. For some, it was interesting to have to work with them; for others, it was important to remain on guard and to keep them at a certain distance. Either way, working with Chinese troops usually seemed to be something noteworthy.
When discussing insecurity, Canadian military peacekeepers highlighted the quality of their training compared to other MINUSMA forces, the quantity of armaments in their aircraft, and their collaboration with their NATO allies in Camp Castor, the German and Dutch forces. Some also talked about how Camp Castor is built and secured compared to the Supercamp; interviewees remarked that for these reasons they felt they were in a safer environment than people at the Supercamp. The proximity and professionalism of the French ally was also noted as a reason to feel safe. However, the reference to 'NATO allies' was not only based on security issues but also on operational practices. When talking about how they approached this new experience of peacekeeping as individuals, Canadians were excited and curious to work with military forces from countries outside of NATO. For some, this diverse multinational context was an intrinsic part of the UN experience. This identification with the UN was described as important and as a source of pride for most Canadian soldiers, regardless of rank, which may have something to do with the Canadian peacekeeping narrative or the novelty of this kind of operation. As soon as possible after their arrival at Camp Castor, they put up their UN flag and started wearing their MINUSMA insignia. One interviewee close to leadership noted that before their arrival the Germans did not have any UN signs up. 63 But this UN identification stopped with the badges, flag, helmets, and berets, as all the helicopters (CH-147F Chinooks for transport and CH-146 Griffons to defend the Chinooks) were still green and not white like other UN aircraft. 64 Those who had to interact with contingents from outside of Camp Castor added that the cultural and language differences made their work challenging. The challenges that were mentioned most often were the differences in how people work and the differences in certain military and operational standards. They knew they could trust the work standards of their Camp Castor allies and the secure lines of communication that they already shared in NATO and were using in Mali. As stated by the Canadian Task Force Commander when discussing Camp Castor: 'The Camp consists almost uniquely of NATO members and thus operational coordination is easiest here'. 65 Their confidence in their own capabilities also made the interviewees confident that they were enhancing the capacities of MINUSMA. Indeed, through the presence of specialized capabilities countries such as Canada and Germany, MINUSMA gains access to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), aeromedical evacuation, and the know-how that comes with it. In discussions with Canadians, they saw their relationship as an opportunity for both parties to learn: for them to learn how to work in the peacekeeping system, and for the UN to learn how to use high-technology materiel and knowledge. Those specialized capabilities led some officers to feel that the Canadian contingent was in a leadership position vis à vis other MINUSMA contingents, and they were happy to show other TCCs like Chad, Guinea, Bangladesh, and Burkina Faso how to improve their capabilities with air mobility. As with the question of intelligence, the relationship to militarized technology also reinforces the hierarchical power relations between Global North and Global South TCCs, by reinforcing the idea that some TCCs are positioned as teachers and others as learners. This process of hierarchization between contingents is interwoven with processes of militarization. Reinforcing militarization also reinforces the idea that some nations are better protectors than others. This hierarchization interacts with pre-exizting othering and power dynamics between Global North and Global South countries. For example, Canadian interviewees expressed that the high number of fatalities in other contingents was not just because they are more exposed to danger, but also because they are different: 'We have to look at who the fatalities are. I'm not saying that they are not good soldiers, but they don't have the same training. Soldiers from some countries are very aggressive, you really have to admire their courage. But in problematic situations, they may respond without applying the proper techniques. And they are going to make themselves even more vulnerable.' 66 Here, militarization, is intimately bound to the production of global hierarchies and of othering.
Nonetheless, even in the context of Camp Castor, with their shared sense of being in a dangerous, besieged space and with the strong socialization between military colleagues, NATO peacekeepers can also see advantages in resisting militarization and can feel valorized by a 'civilianization' linked to their UN peacekeeping role. When interviewees discussed differences between their previous operations and their tasks in MINUSMA, they mostly mentioned tactical issues, as they had to exchange the enemycentred tactics of an offensive mission for the population-centred tactics of a peacekeeping mission. This adaptation demilitarizes some of the soldiers' usual practices. The military interviewees expressed that their relationship to the Malian population, as a population in need of help, is significant to their sense of purpose as soldiers: I think just most of the people on this task force, we don't know much about peacekeeping because we haven't been to any of them. But when they asked us, back in our home unit, 'Would you like to go on this mission?', and with the peacekeeping title on it, people volunteer more than other operations. First of all, they haven't been on it. Secondly, I think people join the military because they want to serve, so when you are involved in a peacekeeping operation, it gives you a better recognition of why you joined the military. 67 For military peacekeepers, being part of a UN mission means directly helping a population in need, which they did not feel was always the case in other operations. One helicopter pilot from the UK, who had been in Iraq for his previous deployment, explained how much he appreciated transporting UN civilian staff in remote areas because in his opinion Malians feel less threatened seeing civilian rather than military personnel. 68 At the same time, military personnel also know that because of the insecure environment their skills are required in order to allow the civilians to do their work. This 66 Interview 50, Gao, Nov. 24, 2018translated from French. 67 Interview 55, Gao, Nov. 25, 2018. 68 Interview 54, Gao, Nov. 25, 2018 creates tension between their desire to highlight the importance of the mission's civilian aspect, to show that they are indeed part of a civilian mission, and its military aspect, to show that without militarization the mission would not be able to succeed.
As an example of adaptations of militarization within MINUSMA, Camp Castor illustrates the way in which the strong militarymilitary relationship fosters resistance to civilian practices amongst military personnel, who at the same time want to be seen and understood to be part of a civilian operation. This tension is productive and impacts how peacekeepers think about their role, what kind of practices they value, and how they hierarchize their colleagues in Global South contingents. Based on what I observed in Camp Castor, one condition favouring resistance to militarization is the personal valorization that soldiers find in civilian goals, even in a context of strong military socialization. Militarization is thus a process that can be both reinforced and rejected simultaneously. The next section will explore these questions in a context where military and civilian peacekeepers need to interact with one another through their work.

Military -Civilian Relationships: Efficiency, Costs, and Differences
The specific context of insecurity creates dependence between the military and civilian components. The insecurity, meaning the lack of stability, has an impact on the civilians' ability to organize their projects in the regions. When an area is not stable, it is impossible to go there and establish projects with the population; because they cannot go there and communicate with the local population, the area is not stabilized. Hence, the civilians depend on the military to accompany them on their missions outside of the camps, and they sometimes express disappointment because there is not enough military personnel for all the civilian sections or because the soldiers cannot or do not want to go far from the camps. Civilians from different sections talked about their strategies to share military resources, including getting a 'piggy-back ride when other sections go out'. 69 Stabilization itself is not presented the same way by civilian and military personnel. For the military, stabilization is seen as the first step required for the civilians to be able to do their job in a safe environment. A first step that has to be taken by the offensive forces collaborating with MINUSMA. For civilian personnel, however, stabilization is framed as a multifaceted process centred on the physical presence of international civilians in a given location. The idea of stabilization is thus understood differently, depending on one's position in the process of militarization.
The subject of convoys underlines the ambivalence of civilian peacekeepers towards militarization, providing examples of how it can be both 69 Interview 57, Bamako, Nov. 28, 2018. reinforced and resisted. Convoys are mobile spaces where soldiers and civilians mix; they are also militarized spaces where all peacekeepers are reminded of their different levels of vulnerability and roles in the mission. New civilian staff find putting on a bulletproof vest and riding in armoured vehicles somewhat exciting, but they are also aware that this insecurity poses a challenge for their work and that without their military colleagues they could not leave the camp or have access to the local population. These mobile spaces therefore have their own dynamics and it's not always easy for a civilian to get used to being under the protection of armed strangers. This was illustrated for me by one civilian contractor, who explained that before every convoy she is part of, she talks a bit with the soldiers to try to get to know them better, build trust, and feel more comfortable. 70 Militarization is desirable or exciting for civilians because it makes them feel safe or because they have a special position in it, but it can also be threatening.
The soldiers are prepared for danger, and in the case of Canadian military interviewees, it was the first time that they had to work with civilians in civilian structures. This new experience impacted their impression of the UN system, of the vulnerability of their civilian colleagues, and of the benefits of their martial skills. When discussing insecurity, one Canadian officer explained that: 'They [the civilians in the mission] are targeted more often than soldiers are because those who target them know that they don't have the same training or experience or equipment. So they become an easier thing to go after.' 71 But the reverse also happens, as civilians note structural difficulties in having to work on the same projects as uniformed personnel whose rotations are more frequent, making it more challenging to follow up on projects and build trust with the local population. In each case peacekeepers choose to reinforce or reject militarization for reasons that they relate to their ability to accomplish their own tasks effectively.
Mixing uniformed personnel and civilians does not always make for a good combination, as tensions around militarization can constitute an obstacle to team cohesion. In one mixed section, a civilian woman explained that the growing number of military colleagues in her section made her feel isolated: 'There is a sort of camaraderie that I don't belong to, so … […] I am out of the boys' club'. 72 Indeed, militarization is a social process that marginalizes women and what is understood as feminine. 73 In this case, both as a woman working in a majority male context and also as a civilian peacekeeper working with military colleagues, the interviewee felt not only personally excluded from the team, but also that the civilian point of view itself was being excluded. She was skeptical concerning the efficacy of this increase 70 Interview 10, Bamako, Oct. 25, 2018. 71 Interview 25, Bamako, Nov. 8, 2018. 72 Interview 30, Bamako, Nov. 16, 2018. 73 Enloe, Globalization and Militarism. in uniformed personnel since she felt that militarized capabilities would not solve the problems facing Mali, which instead required political solutions.
Civilians and soldiers also have different interests when it comes to collecting intelligence. The military needs to leave the camps to gather information, but a member of the Protection of Civilians Unit confirmed that in Mali's highly volatile context, Malians have been punished by jihadists for 'collaborating with the enemy' (meaning the international forces). 74 Civilian personnel sometimes need to convince the military not to approach the local population in order to keep said population safe from retaliation. 75 On the broader peacekeeping level, this is coherent with the findings of Moe, who argues that collaboration with counterterrorist efforts undermines the peacekeeping priority of Protection of Civilians (PoC). 76 This contradiction between how military and civilian personnel try to produce security cannot be reconciled, and illustrates how MINUSMA's militarization does not necessarily make things more secure for Malians.
Frustration with the civilian UN structure and civilian personnel was also expressed by many uniformed personnel, both military and police, from Canada and Europe. When they elaborated on these frustrations and disappointments, the terms frequently used were inefficiency and heavy bureaucracy. The contrast between having so many resources and so little effect was disappointing for people who are used to thinking of their actions in relation to the impact they need to produce. They were irritated by the time required to make decisions and what they saw as poor work habits: deadlines not respected, low standards of performance, emails not answered, or difficulty finding the right person to address a question or an issue. The different timeframe for civilians also caused incomprehension: 'It's a huge machine that doesn't work Sundays'. 77 Meanwhile, some of my civilian interviewees said that they also sometimes have to work on weekends and on their vacations, meaning that for both categories of peacekeepers their experiences were not something that could be taken for granted.
On the subject of militarycivilian relations, irritation was expressed about the UN being an organization that works with financial constraints, which runs counter to the requirements of militarization. In the case of the Canadian contingent, the decision to fly helicopters, even to save lives, always had to be weighed by the Director of Mission Support (DMS), a civilian authority, with the possibility of having to use less costly civilian air services. The feeling of the Canadian leadership was that 'the UN administrative structures and bureaucratic structures work directly in opposition to the 74 Interview 11, Bamako, Oct. 25, 2018. 75 Interview 41, Gao, Nov. 23, 2018. 76 Moe, "The Dark Side." 77 Interview 53, Gao, Nov. 25, 2018translated from French. military rapidity of action'. 78 But the Canadian contingent also benefited from great operational freedom, an innovation that needs to be studied in future PKOs using the specialized capabilities of Global North TCCs. Their ultimate chain of command was in Canada, not in MINUSMA. As such, they were able to send out flights without waiting for authorization from MINUSMA, which gave them much more power than any other contingent but which also exacerbated tensions with New York. Interviewees were clear that this innovation was possible because of lessons learned from the 1990s. Even though the contingent's leadership was ready to assume the costs of these tensions, interviewees said they were ill-equipped to understand the politics and bureaucracy of the UN, and that they wished they knew more about these civilian power structures. This shows that, in the face of civilian practices, militarization is a resource more likely to be reinforced when the military acts as a cohesive group.
But the line between uniformed and civilian personnel is not unbridgeable. Some civilians in MINUSMA are former members of military or police forces. All of these told me that their background helped prepare them for their civilian roles in MINUSMA, either for their work tasks or for living conditions in the regions. The section chief of the Conduct and Discipline Unit (CDU), a unit mainly responsible for training peacekeepers and sensitizing the local population about issues of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA), explained that a military background is useful in order to be able to communicate with military personnel about such delicate matters. 79 Civilians with a military background play an important role in the adaptations of militarization. They translate practices and language between the different parties and normalize the possibility of direct violence for other civilians. Depending on what direction UN peacekeeping takes in the future, it will be important to reflect on the implications of such civilians, looking beyond strictly utilitarian criteria. What should be normalized and for whom? These questions are important in recognizing the specificity of this kind of personnel and what type of practices they should highlight.

Conclusion
Militarization in/by MINUSMA provokes tensions between civilian and military approaches and practices. Civilian and military peacekeepers are always walking a tightrope between reinforcing militarization, the need for which they associate with a high level of insecurity, and the obligation to think of the mission primarily as a civilian tool that needs to be focused on civilian goals. The prominence of Global North TCCs providing 78 Interview 52, Gao, Nov. 25, 2018. 79 Interview 12, Bamako, Oct. 26, 2018 specialized capabilities hinders civilian practices, but at the same time the individual components of these TCCs are adapting themselves to civilian goals and practices. Studying the process of militarization in MINUSMA reveals a social process that is constant, disputed, and used as a resource when security is required but then rejected when civilian goals are being highlighted. As such, peacekeeping and militarization in MINUSMA are co-constructed, they feed into each other, and peacekeepers' interactions within MINUSMA are a product of this tension. In the case of MINUSMA, the context of robust peacekeeping, combined with the implications of collaboration with counterterrorist operations and the reengagement of NATO TCCs, creates a space where militarization is reinforced for the mission and its peacekeepers, in tension with civilian practices and goals.
Militarization seems an acceptable, even necessary, resource for UN peacekeepers in this context of asymmetric threats, as does collaboration with counterterrorist forces. This context has particular requirements and the UN's decision to operate in it necessitates different technological tools as well as a different mindset. 80 Enloe writes that militarization is a process that requires decisions; in MINUSMA such decisions by the UNSC are connected to peacekeepers who interpret the insecure context through the lens of military action. 81 The new turn to officially collaborating with counterterrorist activities might seem unsurprising in a context like Mali, where there are multiple actors on the ground with different goals, and where non-collaboration could be viewed as counterproductive. But in the future it will be necessary to ask what are the next logical steps for peacekeeping and peace-building if the UN decides to push forward with the militarization of peace operations.
Unfortunately, this study does not permit us to draw conclusions about the interaction between resistance to militarization and its reinforcement, besides noting that they can be observed in the same context and that each can be experienced by the same peacekeeper at different moments. More research is also needed to ascertain what factors could affect the process of militarization for specific categories of peacekeepers.
Another extension of this research would be to study the relationship between militarization in MINUSMA and Quick Impact Projects (QIPs), which have been criticized in studies on the effects of combining humanitarian, development and military activities. 82 In the same vein, it would also be interesting to explore the impacts of militarization on the relationship between the mission and Malians. Building on observations where Global 80 Karlsrud, "Towards UN Counter-Terrorism Operations?" 81 Enloe, Globalization and Militarism. 82 Tronc, Grace, and Nahikian, Realities and Myths of the 'Triple Nexus." North peacekeepers hierarchize their colleagues from Africa, a subsequent avenue for future research would be to analyse the relationship between militarization and issues of hierarchization between peacekeepers of different nations within the same mission. Peacekeepers come from all around the world, and with the new requirements occasioned by the counterterrorist project it is necessary to understand the interplay of globalized hierarchies within this kind of PKO.