Civil conflicts in Africa range from few interstate wars to several intrastate conflicts characterized by secessionist movements, irredentism, coups and counter coups, genocide, wars of liberation to resource-based wars. The varied causes of conflicts in the continent's diverse and complex social formations are seen in ethnic terms and include struggles for economic/environmental resources, poor institutions of governance and issues of identity such as religion, language and racial differences. The core issue addressed in this volume is how to understand and explain the structural and analytical reasons for persistent civil conflicts in Africa. The core assumption is that most civil conflicts in Africa erupt largely because of the nature of state formation in the continent. Other significant variables that are explored as explanations for the persistent instances of civil conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and the slow efforts at nation-building across the continent include issues of territoriality, climate change, ethnicity, ideological incongruities, institutional problems, the nature of postcolonial state, unreformed governance and economic structures, and corruption. This book also examines some sources of unresolved issues of territoriality and explains their connections to political violence and socio-political and cultural tensions across sub-Saharan Africa. It offers suggestions on how scholarly research and policies could help mediate if not mitigate future territorially-based conflicts in Africa. __________________________________ Kelechi A. Kalu is Associate Provost for Global Strategies and International Affairs at The Ohio State University, USA. He is also Professor of African American & African Studies, and Faculty affiliate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State. David Kraybill is Professor of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at Ohio State University. Currently, Kraybill is Co-Principal Investigator and Project Director for the Innovative Agricultural Research Initiative, a USAID Feed the Future project in Tanzania. Ufo Okeke Uzodike is a Professor of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. He is the editor of Afrika: Journal of Politics, Economics and Society; and Ubuntu: Journal of Conflict Transformation.

Ubuntu: Journal of Conflict Transformation is a biannual Journal of the Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies Programme, School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Topics in this issue include: Towards Deepening Conflict Transformation and Peace-building. Footsteps in History, Colonial Origins of African Conflicts: an insight from the Nigeria/Cameroon Border Conflict. How African Civil Wars Hibernate: The Warring Communities of the Senegal / Guinea Bissau Borderlands in the face of the Casamance Forgotten Civil War and the Bissau-Guinean State failure. Managing Violent Conflicts over Marginality from Below: the role of Non-state Actors in the Management of the Niger Delta Conflict in Nigeria. Post-conflict Reconstruction and the Resurgence of 'Resolved' TerritorialConflicts: Examining the DRC Peace Process. Strengthening Ties among Landlocked Countries in Eastern Africa: Making Prisoner's Dilemma a Strategy of Collaboration. Age-long Land Conflicts in Nigeria: A Case for Traditional Peacemaking Mechanisms Social Protection, Labour Markets and the Economic Reconfiguration of Post-Conflict Northern Uganda. Devolution - The 'Ticklish' Subject: The 'Northern Problem' and the National Question in Zimbabwe. The Monarchy, Land Contests and Conflict in Post-Colonial Swaziland. Re-Engineering the Ethics of Land, Space and Territorial Acquisition as Strategies for Resolving Nigerian Civil Conflicts