Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction: Women's roles, gender politics and justice in Africa -- 2. African feminisms and justice on the ground -- 3. Mending social relations: A community court in a Namibian village and extending a relational quality of justice on the ground -- 4. Creating social harmony: Justice on the ground in Mudzi and Hurungwe Districts, Zimbabwe -- 5. Women at the centre: The case of Gueguegue community, Boane District Mozambique -- 6. The dissolution of a customary marriage: Women and the Traditional Court system in South Africa -- 7.Conclusion: Supporting justice on the ground in Southern Africa.

National reconciliation has increasingly become an integral part of post-conflict recovery processes in Africa. What national reconciliation means, how it differs from interpersonal reconciliation and to what extent governments can facilitate reconciliation at all remains under debate. This article examines government institutions intended to facilitate national reconciliation processes in South Africa, Rwanda and Burundi. Rather than normatively prescribing what governments should be doing, this article seeks to examine what governments are doing as a starting point to understanding what national reconciliation is.

In 2000, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted the landmark resolution UNSC 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. This resolution urges member states to ensure the prevention of conflict against women, promote the protection of women during conflicts, and ensure the participation of women in conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction of their communities. This resolution further urges member states to increase the representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional, and international institutions. South Sudan became a member of the UNSC after its independence in 2011 and ratified UNSC Resolution 1325. The establishment of South Sudan as an independent nation on July 9, 2011, marked a historic milestone, but the celebrations were short-lived as war broke out in December 2013. The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has played a central role in mediating the conflict in South Sudan since the 2013 conflict. IGAD developed a Regional Action Plan (RAP) on implementing the UNSC Resolution 1325 in 2013. IGAD's RAP focuses on the participation of women in decision-making, but there are shortcomings to the RAP in that it states very little about the leadership of women in peace processes. This article examines the role of IGAD as a mediator in the South Sudan mediation process, with a particular focus on the RAP and the inclusion of women in track one mediation processes. Although women may be included in track three mediation, one of the reasons for the continued failure of sustained peace in South Sudan, we argue, is the continued marginalisation of women from track one mediation leadership processes.

Reconciliation has become an integral part of the post-conflict peacebuilding process, and has come to be seen as an integral part of sustaining peace and security, particularly at the local level. The tension between a state security and human security approach to peacebuilding is particularly evident in national reconciliation and transitional justice processes. There is a continued emphasis on high-level reconciliation processes and the reconciliation of elite actors over processes that facilitate reconciliation at the community level. This article explores this in the case of Zimbabwe, where the emphasis is on a state-based approach to resolving conflict, which fails to take into account or address the needs and issues that affect local communities. Drawing from fieldwork undertaken in Matabeleland in April, 2014, this article describes what community members identify as their central needs when it comes to reconciliation, within the context of the state-driven processes that have been implemented to date.

The ubiquitous Internet platform in Africa has given rise to a new set of non-state actors responding to protracted conflicts through the use of new media technology. As a departure from a state-centric approach to addressing conflict in Africa, this interdisciplinary study explores the contribution of the public in responding to armed conflicts through citizen journalism. To unearth non-violent African digital innovations, this research explored the Ushahidi platform, which emerged as a response to Kenya's 2008 post-election violence. Using a qualitative method, data was gathered through unstructured in-depth interviews. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. The data showed the transformative role the Ushahidi platform played during Kenya's electoral violence through crisis-mapping, the early warning multi-agent consortium, a constitutional referendum, and election monitoring. Evidence also emerged regarding the pioneer work of Ushahidi in other non-violent technological involvements in addressing crisis in Kenya.