Nicodemus
Minde
United States
International University – Africa
The conference [October 12-14, 2017] was an excellent opportunity to debate the Africa’s
standing in global politics. The conference stimulated my interest in the
discussion around African studies, Africa’s
agency in international relations and place of local agencies in conflict
management and peacebuilding. The panel that I presented was titled “The
future of Peacebuilding: Security, governance and transitional justice in
post-colonial Africa.” This panel among other things debated the potency of
Western-led and state-centric approaches to peacebuilding and transitional justice
in Africa. In my paper presentation “Peacebuilding through
Transitional Justice in South Sudan: Challenges and Prospects”, I
critiqued the liberal peace thesis in the peacebuilding agenda in South Sudan.
I also critiqued the timing of transitional justice in post-conflict South
Sudan arguing that it was rushed. Building on the thematic area of our panel, I
also looked at the role of the local agency in peacebuilding. The resulting
discussion was on the need for a careful balance between Western approaches to
peacebuilding with those that we refer as traditional.
I participated in many
other panels which among other things looked at decolonizing academia, deconstructing
and reimaging educational systems, democratic consolidation and discourses of development.
All panels managed to stimulate debate and discussion on the place of Africa in
global politics. For me the best debate came from Emeritus Professor Jacob
Gordon of University of Kansas who presented on the role of ASAA in African
Studies. Prof. Gordon averred that unless ASAA develops its capacity it cannot
influence anything in the global arena. He challenged the role of ASAA and
prescribed ways it can be able to resuscitate African intellectualism.
