Suchergebnisse

As one of the most conflict prone regions, the importance of research focusing on peacebuilding on the African continent cannot be over-emphasized. Since the end of the colonial rule, the development of peace and security context in the African continent has been influenced by a specific agenda linked with the removal of the imperial forces. The peace and security narratives have highlighted the need for "African solutions for African problems" with a reference to African sovereignty and ownership of peace and security issues on the continent. At the same time, peace interventions by African states have proven to be no less controversial than international alternatives. Such contemporary contradictions in peacebuilding context in Africa highlight the need to analyze the notion of African peacebuilding, the discussions around peacebuilding activities on the continent and elaborate how the topic is addressed in current discussions. With the use of narrative analysis, this thesis seeks to contribute to this need by analyzing how experts of peacebuilding produce information about the challenges, prospects and future trends of peacebuilding efforts in Africa. The research aims to answer what kind(s) of narrative(s) about peacebuilding in Africa is produced by the Kujenga Amani ('building peace' in Swahili) podcast of the African Peacebuilding Network of the Social Science Research Council. Moreover, this thesis seeks to contribute to the discussion on how information is produced and how the production of certain narratives about peacebuilding in Africa from certain positions (re)shape the realities they reflect. The resulting narratives are the needy Africa -narrative, African first -narrative and real peace is local but liberal -narrative. The first two narratives answer how the African is narrated through the peacebuilding in Africa and the last narrative what kind of peace is narrated through peacebuilding in Africa. The results create a paradox where the 'African' perspectives, 'African' ownership and 'local' peacebuilding are promoted as a critique to the failures of liberal peace while at the same time, the ideals of peace and peacebuilding in Africa are connected to the liberal peace theory. The same contradiction of reasoning the current state of peacebuilding in Africa is present in all three narratives. This thesis concludes that the widespread discourse of 'African peacebuilding' and the promotion of 'local' and 'African' approaches to peacebuilding seems to create a picture of, as if there would be, agreed understanding of both the content and meaning of these concepts as well as the consequences of creating policies which reflects a certain understanding of the 'African'. In the light of this thesis however, such consensus over the concepts remains to be defined, which sets both hindrances of developing efficient and adaptable peacebuilding approaches and increases the risk of misusage of the concepts to cover other motives and agendas. This thesis concludes by stating that the concept of 'African peacebuilding' needs to be further evaluated and its contextual usages and motives assessed in order to avoid using the term just as a rhetorical façade. Furthermore, it introduces an idea of a needs-based peacebuilding approach, which moves beyond pre-defined conceptual categorizations exposed from the outside that produce unnecessary distinctions between liberal, local and African and instead focus on the genuine engagement of the local actors and their context specific needs.