Travelling Models in Conflict Management. A comparative research and network building project in six African countries

Participation in a project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

Duration: 01.11.2006 – 30.04.2011

Head of the project: Richard Rottenburg (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

Heads of the project at the MPI: Günther Schlee and Jacqueline Knörr

The project was based on the observation that conflicts and efforts in conflict management (i.e. processes concerning conflict dynamics, their prevention and resolution) are embedded in localised processes and particular social alliances while simultaneously being informed by translocally circulating ideas and models. In the form of theoretically informed empirical studies in selected regions in West Africa, Northeast Africa and Southern Africa, the project asks if and how translocal organisational, legal and political models influence conflict prevention, dynamics and resolution. It analyses how such models are translated into the particular context, i.e. merged with traditional ways of dealing with conflicts or are rejected. While building up a research network across language divides in Africa, this interdisciplinary project thus aimed at understanding the trans/local character of conflict and conflict management in sub-Saharan Africa and, more generally, how globally circulating models and ideasare employed in structuring and giving meaning to them.

Project website: http://www.ethnologie.uni-halle.de/personal/richard_rottenburg/projects_prof._dr._rottenburg/travelling_models