This book examines the multifaceted nature of conflict and the importance of the socio-economic and political contexts of conflict and violence and shows how to support ongoing initiatives and programs to build sustainable peace on the African continent. Drawing on a range of conceptual framings in the study of peace and conflict, from gender perspectives to institutionalist to decolonial perspectives, the contributors show how peacebuilding research covers a whole range of questions that go beyond concerns for post-conflict reconstruction strategies. Chapters focus on the methodological, theoretical and practical aspects of peacebuilding and provide a toolbox of perspectives for conceptualizing and doing peacebuilding research in Africa. Anchored in African-centered perspectives, the book encourages and promotes high-quality interdisciplinary research that is conflict-sensitive, historically informed, theoretically grounded and analytically sound. This book will be of benefit to scholars, policy makers and research institutions engaged in peacebuilding in Africa.

The end of the Cold War was to usher in an era of peace based on flourishing democracies and free market economies worldwide. Instead, new wars, including the war on terrorism, have threatened international, regional, and individual security and sparked a major refugee crisis. This volume of essays on international humanitarian interventions focuses on what interests are promoted through these interventions and how efforts to build liberal democracies are carried out in failing states. Focusing on Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, an international group of contributors shows that best practices of protection and international state-building have not been applied uniformly. Together the essays provide a theoretical and empirical critique of global liberal governance and, as they note challenges to regional and international cooperation, they reveal that global liberal governance may threaten fragile governments and endanger human security at all levels.

This book examines the multifaceted nature of conflict and the importance of the socio-economic and political contexts of conflict and violence and shows how to support ongoing initiatives and programs to build sustainable peace on the African continent. Drawing on a range of conceptual framings in the study of peace and conflict, from gender perspectives to institutionalist to decolonial perspectives, the contributors show how peacebuilding research covers a whole range of questions that go beyond concerns for post-conflict reconstruction strategies. Chapters focus on the methodological, theoretical and practical aspects of peacebuilding and provide a toolbox of perspectives for conceptualizing and doing peacebuilding research in Africa. Anchored in African-centered perspectives, the book encourages and promotes high-quality interdisciplinary research that is conflict-sensitive, historically informed, theoretically grounded and analytically sound. This book will be of benefit to scholars, policy makers and research institutions engaged in peacebuilding in Africa.

The Postcolonial African State in Transition offers a new perspective on a set of fundamental, albeit old questions with salient contemporary resonance: what is the nature of the postcolonial state? How did it come about? And more crucially, the book poses an often neglected question: what was the postcolonial African state internally built against? Through a detailed historical investigation of the Voltaic region, the book theorizes the state in transition as the constitutive condition of the African state, rendering centralization processes as always transient, uncertain, even dangerous endeavors. In Africa and elsewhere in the colonial and postcolonial world, the centralized sovereign state has become something of a meta-model that bears the imprint of necessity and determinism. This book argues that there is nothing natural, linear, conventional or intrinsically consensual about the centralized state form. In fact, the African state emerged, and was erected against, and at the expense of a variety of authority structures and forms of self-governance. The state has sustained itself through destructive practices, internal colonization, and in fact the production and alienation of a range of internal others.

The Postcolonial African State in Transition offers a new perspective on a set of fundamental, albeit old questions with salient contemporary resonance: what is the nature of the postcolonial state? How did it come about? And more crucially, the book poses an often neglected question: what was the postcolonial African state internally built against? Through a detailed historical investigation of the Voltaic region, the book theorizes the state in transition as the constitutive condition of the African state, rendering centralization processes as always transient, uncertain, even dangerous endeavors. In Africa and elsewhere in the colonial and postcolonial world, the centralized sovereign state has become something of a meta-model that bears the imprint of necessity and determinism. This book argues that there is nothing natural, linear, conventional or intrinsically consensual about the centralized state form. In fact, the African state emerged, and was erected against, and at the expense of a variety of authority structures and forms of self-governance. The state has sustained itself through destructive practices, internal colonization, and in fact the production and alienation of a range of internal others.

Contributors examine how international theatre festivals have been organised and how they have affected the evolution of sustainable theatre. During the last fifty years, large sums of money, huge resources of labour and vast amounts of creative energy have been invested in international theatre festivals in Africa. Under banners such as 'Reclaiming the African Past' and 'African Renaissance', the festival participants have used the performing arts to address a variety of topical issues and to confront images embedded by a century of patronising colonial expositions. The themes indicate the desire to take history by the forelock, challenge perceptions and transform communities. Volume Editor: JAMES GIBBS Series Editors: Martin Banham, Emeritus Professor of Drama & Theatre Studies, University of Leeds; James Gibbs, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of the West of England; Femi Osofisan, Professor of Drama at the University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds; Yvette Hutchison, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick

The end of the Cold War was to usher in an era of peace based on flourishing democracies and free market economies worldwide. Instead, new wars, including the war on terrorism, have threatened international, regional, and individual security and sparked a major refugee crisis. This volume of essays on international humanitarian interventions focuses on what interests are promoted through these interventions and how efforts to build liberal democracies are carried out in failing states. Focusing on Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, an international group of contributors shows that best practices of protection and international state-building have not been applied uniformly. Together the essays provide a theoretical and empirical critique of global liberal governance and, as they note challenges to regional and international cooperation, they reveal that global liberal governance may threaten fragile governments and endanger human security at all levels.