Africa has witnessed a number of transitions to democracy in recent years. Coinciding with this upsurge in democratic transitions there also have been spectacular experiences of social disintegration. An alternative to discourses of the 'failed' and 'collapsed' state in Africa is an approach that takes seriously the complexity of historical processes, on which the political development of individual nation states was based. The chapters in this volume throw light on the ways in which violence, political culture and development have interacted in recent African history. They run in a continuum from discussions of 'warlord politics' to an understanding of the 'new wars' in Africa as outcomes of fundamental changes in social solidarity. Wars and violent conflicts in Africa can thus be understood as responses to economic emergencies and political problems which are real, have histories, and can be engaged with constructively through both intellectual and practical efforts.
CONTENTS:
Introduction
- states of failure or societies in collapse? Dynamics of violent conflict in Africa by Preben Kaarsholm - Insurgencies in the shadow of state collapse by William Reno - Conflict and militia formation in eastern Congo
- a societal view on violence and war by Koen Vlassenroot - Debating the Rwanda genocide
- strengthening the U.N. Genocide convention by Nigel Eltringham - Darfur, peace, genocide and crimes against humanity in Sudan by Douglas H. Johnson - Legacies of violence in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe by Jocelyn Alexander - The past as contested terrain
- commemorating new sites of memory in wartorn Ethiopia by Alessandro Triulzi - Violence as signifier
- politics and generational struggle in KwaZulu-Natal by Preben Kaarsholm - War, violence and videotapes
- the use of media in the Liberian civil war by Mats Utas - Beyond violence
- the anthropology of new wars in Africa by Paul Richards.
