Conflict continuities special section

It is tempting to interpret the eruption of armed violence in various parts of the world as a break with the past. However, in this special section, the authors call for attention to “conflict continuities” to understand contemporary violence. Challenging the conventional focus on causes or consequences, they argue that past violent conflict may serve to generate new conflict, in reworked forms. They foreground the psychosocial dynamics of conflict, particularly as they affect social relations and worldviews, often reproduced through cultural narratives. The special section brings together five studies from across Africa. In different ways, they reveal how conflicts are remembered, reiterated, and reproduced in narratives that circulate in families, communities, and national-level politics, thus embodying a generative force for new conflict and struggle.

 

This special section was organized by the ASCL CRG ‘Conflict continuities’, and features contributions by ASCL colleagues, including work on Social Media, Duress and the Malian Conflict, The Liberation Lens in Southern Africa, and Domestic Pedagogies of Peace and Conflict in Rwandan and Banyamulenge Refugee Communities in Rwanda.

 

This special journal section was published in Conflict and Society Volume 11 (2025): Issue 1