Description
Book SynopsisIndigenous Conflict Management Strategies in West Africa: Beyond Right and Wrong expands the discourse on indigenous knowledge. With several examples and case histories, the work defines, characterizes, and explains indigenous conflict management strategies in West Africa, particularly in Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. The book critically evaluates indigenous conflict management strategies with a view to determining their effectiveness in the context of the societies' history and culture, and the relevance and adaptability of these strategies in contemporary contexts. This book takes a scholarly approach, avoiding romanticizing or idealizing indigenous conflict management strategies in West Africa. It advocates a set of mechanisms by which the best elements of indigenous knowledge and skills in conflict management may be deployed to settle contemporary disputes, and made portable for adoption and adaptation by other complex societies in the region and beyond.
Trade ReviewBeginning with its title, Indigenous Conflict Management Strategies in West Africa: Beyond Right and Wrong captures the rich spirit of indigenous conflict management attitudes and strategies in West Africa and beyond. It digs deep into the layers of understanding rolled up in traditional practices and examines their relation—often but not necessarily conflictual—with modern practice. This solid volume is built on conceptual developments and many cases that provide the basis for insight into traditional society and introspection into modern ways. -- I. William Zartman, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Indigenous Conflict Management Strategies in West Africa: Beyond Right and Wrong offers a wonderfully far-ranging, yet in-depth, discussion of conflict resolution and prevention in West Africa, with a particular focus on Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. With careful attention to the cultural and institutional contexts in which conflict takes place, the chapters demonstrate the need to take indigienous norms seriously in an age when international actors promote 'best practices' without always taking these norms into account. The resulting combination of critical commentary with descriptions of indigenous conflict management strategies will be useful to scholars and practitioners alike. Indigenous Conflict Management Strategies in West Africa: Beyond Right and Wrong is an extremely important and very welcome addition to the literature on conflict resolution in West Africa. -- Niklas Hultin, George Mason University
Table of ContentsChapter One: Introduction: Reconciliation and Conflict Management in West Africa through Cultural Traditions Brandon D. Lundy and Joseph Kingsley Adjei General and Conceptual Frameworks Chapter Two: Conflicts in Africa: Negotiating Space for Indigenous Conflict Management Strategies in the Contemporary Age Olutayo C. Adesina Chapter Three: Exploring Indigenous Mechanisms for Peacemaking in West Africa Serwaa Brewoo and Mustapha Abdallah Chapter Four: Border Disputes in Africa and Traditional Approaches to Resolving Them Joan Mbagwu Chapter Five: “. . . in the Name of the Son”: the ‘Son’ as Scapegoat in African Literature. Kolawole Olaiya Ghana Chapter Six: The Role of the Chieftaincy Institution in Ensuring Peace in Ghana from Precolonial Times to the Present Joseph Kingsley Adjei Chapter Seven: Colonial Justice and Conflict Management: The Case of Chief Seniagya and the Ashanti Golden Stool Joseph Kingsley Adjei and Akanmu G. Adebayo Chapter Eight: Homegrown Crises, Homegrown Solutions? The Efficacy of Indigenous Conflict Resolution/Management Approaches in Ghana Sarah Okaebea Danso and Joana Ama Osei-Tutu Nigeria Chapter Nine: Women’s Involvement in Indigenous Conflict Management: An Analysis of the Role of Umuada in Conflict Management in Traditional Igbo Society of Southeastern Nigeria Felix Chinwe Asogwa Chapter Ten: The Role of the Umunna and Age Grades in Traditional Conflict Management in Igboland Luke Amadi and James E. Agena Chapter Eleven: Communication and Conflict Management in Traditional Igbo Society Emmanuel J. C. Duru, Silk Ugwu Ogbu, and Ifeanyi F. Didiugwu Chapter Twelve: Ilepa Among the Yoruba of Western Nigeria: What Do the Dead Have to Do With Peace and Conflict? Olutayo C. Adesina Chapter Thirteen: Indigenous Methods in Conflict Resolution: The Example of Yorùbá Society Lérè Adéyẹmí Chapter Fourteen: Sparks of Resistance, Flames of Change: Orature in Reconciliation and Conflict Management among the Yorùbá Olusola George Ajibade Chapter Fifteen: The Challenges of Conflict Transformation: Amnesty in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria in Retrospect Willie Eselebor Chapter Sixteen: From Militancy to Amnesty: An Exploration of Nigeria’s Indigenous Conflict Management Strategy in the Niger Delta Region Severus Ifeanyi Odoziobodo and Ifeanyi F. Dididugwu Chapter Seventeen: Alternative Dispute Resolution Strategies, Undergraduate Student Union Leaders, and Conflict Management in Selected Tertiary Institutions in Ibadan Clement O. O. Kolawole and Toluwalope Olajumoke Kolawole Cameroon Chapter Eighteen: Beitonghekeh: Peoples’ Power and Conflict Resolution in Cameroon Henry Kam Kah Chapter Nineteen: Indigenous Peacemaking among the Banso People of Cameroon: Bonyang as a Conflict Resolution System Solomon Losha and Stephen Ojong Agbor Chapter Twenty: Bekem in Peacemaking in Nweh Society Achankeng Fonkem Chapter Twenty One: Conclusion: Implications of Epistemic Diversity for Conflict Management in West Africa and the World Jesse J. Benjamin and Akanmu G. Adebayo
