The Role of Religion in Violence and Peacebuilding

Abstract

Violence may be conceptualised in a narrow sense as physical harm done to persons or property, or in a broader sense as the systemic violation of people’s rights and dignity or any interference that limits one’s potential. Thus, violence can be direct or indirect. It can be structural, cultural or direct. The essays in this volume engage with different theories and concepts of violence, applied mostly to sub-Saharan case studies, to offer diverse perspectives on how religion is instrumentalised for violence or peacebuilding.