Travelling Models in African Conflict Management

Andrea Behrends, Dr. phil., is Principal Investigator of a cooperative research project on "Oil and Social Change in Niger and Chad". Her publications focus on political anthropology and Africa.Sung-Joon Park, is Research Fellow at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. He has published on mass HIV treatment in Uganda.Richard Rottenburg holds a Chair in Anthropology at the University of Halle, Germany. His research focuses on the anthropology of law, organisation, science and technology (LOST).

"Understanding the relationship between the local and the global has caught the imagination of so many researchers before. This book is a new addition with a new perspective on this debate. It is based on case studies of conflict management situations from six African countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and South Africa) that are all characterized as post-conflict communities. Each situation deals with a model that has moved or “traveled” from another local or global context. By trying to understand the dynamic interconnections underlying such intricate relationships, the authors of the book have skilfully used the concept of “translation” to discuss the process by which models travel from one context to another (de-contextualized and re-contextualized). Starting from different disciplinary backgrounds, such as anthropology, sociology, history, and political science, and dealing with diverse topics the book is a vivid demonstration of how both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches can be successfully married. The book is appealing to wider readership both for its theoretical thrust and ethnographic richness." – Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil, University of Khartoum, Sudan"In spite of numerous pleas for a "symmetrical approach" in field studies, research on Africa has suffered from seemingly unavoidable exoticism, framed into the space and time of "the Other". "Travelling Models" breaks out of this framework decisively, applying an analytical frame well known from organisation studies to scrutinise conflict management in African countries. The results are an important contribution to globalisation studies, revealing both the unyielding traits of global models and the intricate nuances of local translations; unexpected similarities and unanticipated differences. A collection of studies that is a source of new knowledge as well as a template for new kind of global studies." – Barbara Czarniawska, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

• ContentsGeneralitiesPrefaceAndrea BehrendsList of ContributorsChapter 1 Travelling Models. Introducing an analytical concept to globalisation studiesAndrea Behrends, Sung-Joon Park and Richard RottenburgPart I Expert interventions and local redefinitionsChapter 2 Workshopping owners. Policies, procedures and pitfalls of peace-building in the non-state sector of LiberiaVeronika FuestChapter 3 Does rationality travel? Translations of a World Bank model for fair oil revenue distribution in Chad Remadji Hoinathy and Andrea BehrendsChapter 4 Conflicts as disasters. Translations of conflict in post-apartheid South Africa? Lydie CabanePart II Institutions of political orderingChapter 5 Power-sharing in southeast Darfur. Local translations of an international modelMutasim Bashir Ali HadiChapter 6 Travelling ideologies and the resurgence of traditional institutions in post-1991 EthiopiaDejene Gemechu Chapter 7 Democratisation between violent conflict and the resurgence of chieftaincy. Local transformations of a travelling model in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Mario KrämerPart III Mobilisation and communities in social orderingChapter 8 Singing for change. Music as a means of political expression for young people in Sierra Leone and Liberia Sylvanus Spencer Chapter 9 Translating community policing in different social orders in Stellenbosch, South AfricaTinashe Pfigu and Kees van der Waal Index