Conflict Resolution Studies Faculty Articles

Indigenous ideas of the social and conceptualizing peace in Africa

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2008

Publication Title

Africa Peace and Conflict Journal

Volume

1

Issue/No.

1

First Page

1

Last Page

18

Abstract

A recent resort to indigenous mechanisms to arrive at justice, peace, and reconciliation calls attention to assumptions underlying existing analyses of conflict and peace in Africa. How adequately do they capture the African people’s experience of war and aspirations for peace? The answer is important for crafting policies aimed at transforming destructive and debilitating conflict and at building and sustaining peaceful societies. The trend also raises the question of what African knowledge systems have to offer in the ongoing project of theorising peace and conflict. It is thus necessary to examine the understandings of peace and war suggested by indigenous ideas, especially if African peoples are ultimately to be responsible for dealing with their conflicts constructively and sustaining the peace they build.

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