Travelling Models in African Conflict Management: Translating Technologies of Social Ordering: 13 (Africa-europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies, 13) - Softcover

"Understanding the relationship between the local and the global has caught the imagination of so many researchers before. This book is a new addition with a new perspective on this debate. It is based on case studies of conflict management situations from six African countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and South Africa) that are all characterized as post-conflict communities. Each situation deals with a model that has moved or "traveled" from another local or global context. By trying to understand the dynamic interconnections underlying such intricate relationships, the authors of the book have skilfully used the concept of "translation" to discuss the process by which models travel from one context to another (de-contextualized and re-contextualized). Starting from different disciplinary backgrounds, such as anthropology, sociology, history, and political science, and dealing with diverse topics the book is a vivid demonstration of how both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches can be successfully married. The book is appealing to wider readership both for its theoretical thrust and ethnographic richness." - Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil, University of Khartoum, Sudan
"In spite of numerous pleas for a "symmetrical approach" in field studies, research on Africa has suffered from seemingly unavoidable exoticism, framed into the space and time of "the Other." "Travelling Models" breaks out of this framework decisively, applying an analytical frame well known from organisation studies to scrutinise conflict management in African countries. The results are an important contribution to globalisation studies, revealing both the unyielding traits of global models and the intricate nuances of local translations; unexpected similarities and unanticipated differences. A collection of studies that is a source of new knowledge as well as a template for new kind of global studies." - Barbara Czarniawska, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Travelling models are a concept that offers to examine the translation of conflict management models into differing practices of ordering in African countries.