Conflict continuities: Africa in focus

Berckmoes, L.H.; Bruijn, M.E. de; Jentzsch, C.

doi:doi:10.3167/arcs.2025.110105

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Berckmoes, L.H.; Bruijn, M.E. de; Jentzsch, C. (2025)

Conflict continuities: Africa in focus

Article / Letter to editor

It is tempting to interpret the eruption of armed violence in various parts of
the world as a break with the past. However, in this special section, we call for attention
to “conflict continuities” to understand contemporary violence. Challenging the
conventional focus on causes or consequences, we argue that past violent conflict may
serve to generate new conflict, in reworked forms. We foreground the psychosocial
dynamics of conflict, particularly as they affect social relations and worldviews, often
reproduced through cultural narratives. The special section brings together five studies
from across Africa. In different ways, they reveal how conflicts are remembered,
reiterated, and reproduced in narratives that circulate in families, communities, and
national-level politics, thus embodying a generative force for new conflict and struggle.