CRG Symposium: Narratives in conflict continuities

This Symposium has been rescheduled from 6 June to 11 June due to unforeseen circumstances.

Organised by the Collaborative Research Group Conflict Continuities of the African Studies Centre Leiden, this hybrid symposium hosts two presentations to foster explorations of the place of narratives in conflict continuities. In too many regions and countries in the world, violent conflict, including war and genocide, shape today’s existence. It is appealing to think of the conflicts as signalling a rupture with the past, possibly announcing a new geopolitical era. Yet, we propose to understand violent conflict by paying close attention to what we call conflict continuities. Specifically, the presentations in this symposium explore how conflict legacies inform altered worldviews rooted in past violence, questioning how these bleed into the present and shape the future. Violent conflict fundamentally reorganises social relations, which are often reproduced through cultural narratives. Legacies of conflicts are remembered, reiterated and reproduced in families, schools, communities and in national-level politics. They embody a generative force for new conflict and struggle, sometimes through, again, violent means.

Focusing on the experiences in the African Great Lakes region and in multi-ethnic Ethiopia, the papers presented in this symposium explore how attention to cultural narratives helps us grasp how past conflict may feed new conflict in reworked forms, or instead, can aid in forging pathways to lasting peace. They add to the CRG’s ongoing discussion on conflict continuities, part of which will be represented in the Special Issue Conflict continuities: Africa in focus, currently in print with the journal Conflict and Society.

Image: Rubavu, Rwanda: Damaged houses after cross-border shooting in recent escalation of war in Eastern DRC, picture by L.H. Berckmoes

Phantom wars in the Great Lakes region: Trauma, memory, and conflict discourse
By Dr Aurore Vermylen – UC Louvain; visiting fellow CRG Conflict continuities

Drawing on Green’s (1993) concept of the work of the negative and Abraham and Torok’s (1978) theory of the ghosts of the unconscious, this presentation introduces the concept of “phantom wars” as a framework to better understand protracted conflict situations in Africa’s Great Lakes region. The commonly used term “cyclical wars”, frequently employed to describe recurring violence, has been widely criticised for its essentialist implications (Chrétien 2010).

Engaging with the relationship between what is said and what remains unsaid, dr Vermylen explores how trauma is transformed and becomes visible in the ways war is narrated. In particular, the resonance between memories of past wars and the political discourses mobilised in current conflicts (Mälksoo 2013) will be examined through the lens of trauma and the unspeakable. Drawing on Devereux’s (1967) epistemology, dr Vermylen examines the political connection between trauma and “phantom wars.” Based on ethnographic data, she analyses how trauma is translated into highly specific rhetorical features — such as the specter of genocide in speech; a continuum of affect ranging from indignation to hatred; and dense, complex, high-stakes discourses — that characterise these “phantom wars.

Rethinking history education in Ethiopia: Bridging divergent narratives
By Dr Girma Negash – Addis Ababa University; visiting fellow CRG Conflict continuities

This presentation questions the purpose and direction of history teaching in Ethiopia. History teaching in Ethiopia, a multiethnic state with over 80 ethnic groups, has been grappling with pronounced expressions of diverse identities, competing historical narratives and historiographical debates amidst demands for recognition and representation. Methodologically, a data set of conversations with history teachers, documents and secondary literature have been analysed to study the relationship between education and national consciousness and the challenges of teaching a shared history. Dr Negash argues in this presentation that history teaching, curriculum and textbooks are potentially very useful vehicles to equip the youth with the fundamentals of living together; promoting a culture of peace, tolerance, mutual respect and democracy thereby play a crucial role in preventing violence and curb the potential of conflict continuities. Dr Negash concludes by proposing potential approaches for teaching an inclusive national history that prevents the emergence of contentious narratives.

Programme