New Narratives of Peace and Statebuilding
Background:
The overarching aim of this research is to contribute to a reframing of the narratives that surround peacebuilding processes in Africa. Contemporary narratives underpinning the making of Africa’s states and the process of ensuring their viability are inadequately understood in academia and in the world of policy and practice. The potential or actual outbreak of intractable conflicts, which sometimes threatens the very survival of African states and the efforts to reconcile affected societies and set them back on the course of state building are rarely constructed as part of a continuum. This research project aims to capture and document these narratives and in so doing it interrogates common and established understanding of statebuilding and peacebuilding processes in Africa.
Research Objectives:
This research will be guided by four key objectives:
To draw new and comparable insights about the trajectory of countries that have pursued their statebuilding conversations in part through violent conflict.
To develop conceptual grounding of peacebuilding and statebuilding in Africa.
To draw lessons for peacebuilding processes in countries undergoing violent conflict in the course of statebuilding; and in particular for actors seeking to intervene in those contexts.
To deepen the knowledge of next generation academics and researchers on this subject – through participation in this research and development of curriculum for the study of peace and statebuilding processes in Africa.
