Contents States of failure, societies in collapse? Understandings of violent conflict in Africa / Preben Kaarsholm -- Insurgencies in the shadow of state collapse / William Reno -- Societal view on violence & war : conflict & militia formation in Eastern Congo / Koen Vlassenroot -- Debating the Rwandan genocide / Nigel Eltringham -- Darfur : peace, genocide & crimes against humanity in Sudan / Douglas H. Johnson -- Legacies of violence in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe / Jocelyn Alexander -- Past as contested terrain : commemorating new sites of memory in war-torn Ethiopia / Alessandro Triulzi -- Violence as signifier : politics & generational struggle in KwaZulu-Natal / Preben Kaarsholm -- War, violence & videotapes : media & localised ideoscapes of the Liberian civil war / Mats Utas -- Forced labour & civil war : agrarian underpinnings of the Sierra Leone conflict / Paul Richards