Violence and exiting violence

International conference | April 17th to 19th
Wednesday
17
April
Friday
19
April
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Violence and exiting violence in Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa

Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa has episodes of extreme violence and potential sources of conflict and geopolitical upheaval. The challenge of this conference is to study this violence, between local anchors and globalized forms, as well as the processes that make it possible to get out of it. The upheavals in Libya, Mali, Syria or Nigeria are all major causes of instability whose notable characteristics are the emergence of armed groups and the development of illicit flows, against the backdrop of porous borders. They give a measure of the flashover factors and the level of regional insecurity. But it is also in these varied configurations that violence-free practices can be developed, both locally and regionally. This conference aims to carry out cross-analyzes of these situations in Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa, where it is too often important to determine how violence is linked to religion. It will be a question of deconstructing complex phenomena, as much by their historical density and the fluctuating character of their geopolitical stakes, as by the semantic ambiguities which serve to characterize them - all traits that make it more difficult to think about concrete processes of exiting violence.

The Foundation Maison des sciences de l'homme (FMSH, Paris) and the Chair "Cultures, Societies and Religious Facts" of the International University of Rabat (UIR, Rabat) wish this conference to be the meeting place for sociologists, anthropologists, theologians, historians, political scientists, psychologists, philosophers, but also institutional actors or civil society. These meetings will contribute to the development of the second edition of the International Panel for Exiting Violence (IPEV) launched by the FMSH, which will continue until 2021.

These crossed approaches will make it possible to better understand the sources and modes of functioning of violent or identity discourses and violent practices themselves. Nothing should be left out in our analyzes and debates: religious texts, socio-political contexts, links between politics and religion ... Religions will not be studied only as instruments of violent actors, but as sources of a theological and spiritual diversity that can to block ideological recovery and fanaticism. Political theologies, ethics of non-violence, dynamics of peace and reconciliation will be at the heart of this open scientific event on the political, social, cultural and religious fields.

Morocco, located between Africa, Europe and the Arab world, is at the crossroads of cultures, religions and issues and tensions of the contemporary world. The choice to anchor this international conference in Rabat provides an ideal framework for mobilizing intellectuals from different scientific, cultural or religious backgrounds, and thus to think of major epistemological and societal challenges.

 

Programme

  • April 17th: Presentation of report of the first IPEV edition
  • April 18th and 19th: Violence and exiting violence in Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa Conference

Learn more

Conference organised by the Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme and the Chair "Cultures, Societies and Religious Facts" of the International University of Rabat.
In partnership with the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Commissariat Général à l’Égalité des territoires, UNIMED, Rabita Mohammadia des Oulémas, Interfaith & Peacebuilding Research and training Center, le Conseil de la communauté marocaine à l'étranger, l'Ambassade de France au Maroc, l'INDH, l'IRD and Centre Jacques Berque.

Published at 17 April 2019