APSA inside-out: Researching the Inner Life of African Regional Organizations

Project B07 (SFB 1199) & Folke Bernadotte Academy of Sweden

Recent years have not only seen rapid, critical developments around various (more or less) violent conflicts in Africa triggering responses by African and other regional and international organizations, testing their abilities to respond. These years have also brought new scholarship, employing innovative approaches to study what is commonly referred to as the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) – complementing previous, more conventional research and overcoming some of its problems and limitations. Against this backdrop, this workshop takes stock of developments in the complex and wide-ranging research field that concerns itself with African peace and security, in particular the role and ‘functioning’ of African regional organisations in the context of unfolding dynamics around APSA. More specifically, its aims are twofold. First, it seeks to advance the conceptual debate in order to capture more adequately the complex (i.e. diverse and interrelated, historically contingent) set of actors, practices, and narratives involved in the construction, adaptation and contestation of APSA – highlighting ‘new’ (i.e. so far neglected) empirical aspects. Secondly, the workshop is intended to initiate more explicit scholarly reflection and debate about research practice and methodological issues: How do we know what we know about APSA? How to do research on it? And what are the limits of that research and our knowledge and understanding in that regard?