Short Abstract

The panel explores how communities, states, and international actors respond to jihadist violence and governance in Africa, asking how these responses shape everyday security, social relations, and local forms of political order.

Long Abstract

Much of the research on contemporary jihadist conflict in Africa has focused either on armed groups themselves - their emergence, violence, and attempts to govern - or on state responses, particularly repression and military intervention. This panel brings together work that looks at these conflicts from a broader perspective and studies their implications for security and development policy more broadly. The aims of this panel are to explore how communities, governments, and international actors have responded to jihadist armed groups’ violence and governance, and what these responses mean for security and social order. We put particular emphasis on three axes of variation: which actors are involved in the responses, what different forms responses take, and which technologies are mobilized to respond. Guiding questions include: how have governments at national or local level attempted to contain, repress or accommodate rising armed groups? How do communities navigate between collaboration, resistance, and survival? How do international actors intervene, and how do their military, political, development, humanitarian, or security initiatives reshape local realities? And how are new technologies changing the ways in which different actors develop innovative responses? This panel seeks to bring together contributions that examine how security is negotiated and practiced on the ground. We welcome work from different perspectives and across the social sciences that explores both violent and non-violent responses and pays close attention to the perspectives, experiences, and everyday practices of the actors involved.

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