Conclusion

The chapters in this handbook have sought to make sense of the phenomenon of violence in the vast, historically and culturally diverse and heterogenous geographical landscapes of the African continent. This has opened a window, through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, to the study of violence in the African continent’s different and diverse spaces. Using various approaches to the study of violence in Africa, despite all its different contours of practice, knowledge, beliefs, cultures, and religions, the chapters have shown that violence in Africa depends on many factors. This was demonstrated by examining the political, social, economic, religious, and cultural functions of the concept of violence in the context of various practices and social processes in different African places and contexts—analysing the phenomenon of violence, and the agents involved, with a view to ascertaining the interpretation of violence in different African settings.