Abstract
This article analyses community participation in peace-building in the Mt Elgon area between 2007 and 2017. The article assesses the use of indigenous methods of conflict resolution embedded in restorative practices, as well as seeking to establish the role that Mount Elgon’s Residents Association (MERA) played in peace-building. The study adopts the theoretical work of Johan Galtung’s conflict analysis model and John Paul Lederach’s conflict transformation work on peace-building. The study reveals a yawning need for younger community members to be more involved in peace-building activities in the Mt Elgon area. It further reveals that community members aged between 35 and 54 years strongly believe that their traditional culture and indigenous practices are central to their peace-building efforts in their locality. The study found a majority of community members felt that their involvement has played an important role in disarming local militia groups and in peace-building. Overall, the community strongly pointed at land and “dirty politics” as issues being at the forefront of community conflict in Mt. Elgon.
Highlights
Community conflicts usually have long and complex histories of different group relationships, attacks, and victimization, and are often accompanied by structural violence, and they often lack mutual confidence-building and reconciliation efforts (Nikolic-Ristanovic, 1999)
In our view, understanding the role that communities play in peace-building, using restorative and indigenous approaches in the resolution of conflicts, is vital in the stability and long-term sustainable growth and development of not just communities in Mount Elgon in Western Kenya, where this article is cited, or East Africa as a region and the continent at large
The study revealed that 86 % of the total respondents had some form of formal education. 21 % were educated at the primary level, while 40 % had reached secondary education level. 16 % had vocational qualifications, while a further 9.3 % had a higher education levels of qualification
Summary
Community conflicts usually have long and complex histories of different (ethnic, religious, political) group relationships, attacks, and victimization, and are often accompanied by structural violence, and they often lack mutual confidence-building and reconciliation efforts (Nikolic-Ristanovic, 1999). Social changes occur very often as a result of these types of conflicts (Bowd and Chiwanha, 2010). The impact of such conflicts continues to leave communities distraught, economies destroyed, and nervous political and social relationships including what has been described as psychological suffering and an omnipresent fear (Haider, 2009). In our view, understanding the role that communities play in peace-building, using restorative and indigenous approaches in the resolution of conflicts, is vital in the stability and long-term sustainable growth and development of not just communities in Mount Elgon in Western Kenya, where this article is cited, or East Africa as a region and the continent at large
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