This course offers historical, theoretical and empirical perspectives on the impact of conflict in the modern history of Africa. Opening with a guided discussion of broad debates over models of warfare and violence that apply social, cultural, materialist and instrumental theories of causation, the course then proceeds through a series of case studies in seminars. These include colonial wars of decolonization in Algeria and Kenya, the Biafran War of secession and its repercussions in Nigeria, contrasting genocides in Burundi and Rwanda, the Red Terror in revolutionary Ethiopia, liberation struggles in Southern Africa, the ‘African World War’ in Congo, interlinked conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and other cases of contemporary significance. In each case, students will be encouraged to consider the means of violence employed, the causes and motivations of conflict, issues of gender, youth, religion, politics and ethnicity, the personal and communal impacts of experiencing and witnessing various forms of violence, and the transnational dynamics of conflict. Throughout, questions of culpability, ethics and moralities will be tackled in relation to the various approaches to transitional or retributive justice, the problem of ‘living together again’ dominated by the pressures of memory, silence, memorialization and mythico-history.
- Teacher: Bidemi Oladayo BALOGUN
- Teacher: Aidan Russell