Paper short abstract:

As opposed to placing it at the centre of analysis, the paper seeks to provincialise international peacemaking efforts in Cameroon by situating them within key political questions that have long shaped the country's politics and unpacks the multifaceted meanings of mediation within this context.

Paper long abstract:

Borrowing Chakrabarty’s expression “Provincializing Europe”, the paper seeks to provincialise peacemaking by taking seriously the environment that a mediation initiative is necessarily thrust into at a certain moment in conflict, as opposed to placing it at the centre of analysis. Through a case study of peacemaking efforts around the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, the paper takes as its starting point the recognition that peace mediation is invariably one of many political endeavours and tugs-of-war in the context concerned. Adopting this bird’s eye perspective, it locates the Swiss-led facilitation from 2019 to 2022 within key political questions that predate the mediation initiative and have long shaped Cameroonian politics. Drawing on over sixty semi-structured interviews, including those with Cameroonian ruling party members, opposition politicians, prominent individuals involved in the armed separatist movements, civil society activists and members of the Swiss facilitation team, as well as participant-observation in internationally-funded workshops on mediation and dialogue in Cameroon, the paper asks what the Swiss facilitation attempt meant for different actors in the political arena – and what this in turn meant for the Swiss facilitation. It pays particular attention to its interactions with the question of President Biya’s succession and the related power plays at the upper echelons of government, competing processes pursued under the banner of “peace”, and the ruling power’s desire to secure a degree of legitimacy through elections.