Conflict in Njobokazi, KwaZulu-Natal: Women as victims and as agents of change

abstract

Manchanda (2005, p. 4738) points out that violence is an important variable in determining whether wartime ‘gains’ can be consolidated, as men use violence and the threat of violence to marginalise women, especially in restructuring ‘normalcy’. Empirical research reveals a co-relation between conflict and increasing domestic violence, that is, a connection between violence, militarism and the construction of a macho masculinity. This article utilises empirical data obtained at Njobokazi village by using action research to demonstrate that women suffered as victims during the conflict, while simultaneously acting as agents of change. Women were involved in all facets of the study. The aim of the study was to try and build peace in Njobokazi village. The key factor in this study was the contribution of women, who were a major resource for bringing peace.

keywords:

• women
• violent conflict
• peacebuilding
• South Africa
• action research

Introduction

Our focus is on the interplay between gender and community violence in a rural setting, Njobokazi, on the edge of the eThekwini Metro. Here we consider both how the persistent violence of the area has impaired the lives of women as well as the possibilities for women’s agency in peace-building – including the significance of their participation in research processes.

This article draws on Galtung’s analysis of peace and violence (1969, 1990) and Stalenoi’s (2014) use of peacebuilding. It is based on a doctoral action research study undertaken by the first author from 2019 to 2022 (Shozi 2023). Our analysis draws on the findings of that study as well as on data collected by Shozi that was not reported in the study, given that the doctoral study had a somewhat different focus. Thus, the themes presented here are new but overlap with those of the study.

Shozi (2023, p. 124) reports that “the nature of violence and its devastating impact forced people to flee the area in July 1992.” The most recent armed conflicts took place between the Shozi and Mkhize families and were devastating. Both sides then left the area, with hundreds of Njobokazi residents moving to KwaMlaba village. These people had lost family members, their property and their belongings, and some were badly injured.

The article will first set the context, then connect this study with other literature on the issue of women in conditions of war, set out the methodology of the study and explore how violence had historically impacted women of the area. It will also report their role in a peace-making process before concluding with the implications for women’s role in such conflicts more broadly. The study will also identify the complexities of a male researcher conducting research with women participants.

Mfanozelwe Shozi’s youth was spent in the area and his family were central to violent conflicts, with many family members lost as a result. This gave him significant access to key informants. Potentially, this could also have had led to difficulties with those from families or factions other than his own clan, but the way in which the research process unfolded served to side-step the re-emergence of conflicts from the past.

Context

Njobokazi is an area that was engulfed by what was originally termed ‘faction fighting’ among Zulu people from 1938 onwards. This intensified during the early 1980s, but towards the end of the 1980s it changed to intense political violence. Our understanding of political violence is that it is violence that takes place because members of the community could not tolerate or accept that others support the political parties of their choice; hence they force the other faction to support their political party through violent means. If they refuse, they will fight with them. In some instances, this could happen when members of the community are not happy with a particular candidate and want their own candidate. They will use violent means to present their views.

In the context of the study, faction fighting is defined by the Dictionary of South African English (1992) as “a group or clan of (especially rural) black people engaged in warfare with another group, often over a considerable period”. Shozi (2023, pp. 236-237) reports that “a deeply entrenched conquest mentality had dominated social relations in the area, inflicting deep misery on all. Boys are inducted into it through stick-fighting and through witnessing the involvement of youths and men in direct violence.” This conquest mentality has fostered an idea of power as domination over others, as the basis for gaining respect. The winning faction would not be satisfied by defeating their opponents, but instead would drive them out of the village to ensure that they were completely conquered, and they would never return to their homes. Carton and Morrell (2012) document how in traditional Zulu masculinity stick-fighting required honourable restraint, but out of this context could lapse into ruthless violence.

After residents had fled to other parts of KwaZulu-Natal province and beyond, some of them, including those who had previously fought and had lost loved ones, started to return in the late 1990s and resettled in the area (Shozi 2023, p. 2). Since then there have been occasional outbreaks of violence, but so far on a smaller scale than in the past.

Access to the area is difficult and services such as police and clinics are poor. This is an area that is subject to traditional practices, not least in gender relations. The underdevelopment of the area has had severe impacts on the lives of women – who have had to collect water from rivers and who struggle to get to clinics even to give birth.

Theoretical framework

Galtung (1969, 1990) is best known for his characterisation of different forms of violence. What is most relevant here is his focus on peace. He defines violence as “being present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realizations” (Galtung 1969, p. 168), While he defines peace as the absence of violence (p. 172), he (Galtung 1996) conceptualises peacebuilding as the transformation from conflict to peace by seeing it at two levels: negative or positive peace. He argued that a simple cessation of conflict does not imply that the problem is resolved. In negative peace, with the absence of war, the problem may lay dormant for some time and then erupt again in violence or conflict. Similarly, Stalenoi (2014, p. 41) uses the term peacebuilding to refer to achieving a positive peace, a process resulting in long-term change in post-war societies towards the cessation of structural and cultural violence.

The challenge then for this study is to explore the role of women in achieving not simply some apparent cessation of violence, but a positive peace that is sustainable.

Literature on women and war

We report briefly on the literature regarding women and war, the connection between war and sexual violence, and the role of women in building peace. The growing literature in this area demonstrates that “there is increasingly room to show how women have been represented as soldiers, symbols, victims, booty, motive and followers in warfare” (Brown 2005, p. 173).

Turpin (1998, pp. 15-16) explains:

… the scholarship on women and war links patriarchy and militarism. The relationship is dialectical: militarism relies on patriarchal patterns and patriarchy relies on militarization. Militaries rely on male privilege and female subordination to function. That privilege takes both structural and cultural norms because women have less political, social and economic power in society, they also have less power to make security decisions and very little power in military institutions.

Typically, women in war are depicted as subordinate to men and as victims, those who can only assist men through duties like cooking for warriors, looking after children and doing domestic chores. There is, though, evidence over centuries of women who fought alongside men as soldiers (Brown 2005). Further, as Steflja and Darden (2020) record, “there is ample evidence of women’s active involvement, for example, in the Rwanda genocide”. However, the prevailing experience, not only in times of conflict, according to Moola (2006, p. 126) is that “women continue to suffer gender-specific human rights violations, sexual and racial violence, female infanticide, forced evictions and lack of effective protection.”

Although war and violent conflict are devastating and have irreversible impacts on society, Cheldelin and Eliatamby (2011, p. 2) remind us that “the prevailing narrative also ignores how women’s lives change because of war and traumatic experiences and how women can forge creative strategies to survive these situations.” A key question for us has been whether research interventions can strengthen the role of women in peacebuilding.

This article depicts later that women at Njobokazi were able to use agency and change dynamics within the community. Literature in this section demonstrates that women have been able to engage in the peace activities to develop this agency in the following manner.

Alaga (2010, p. 7) argues “women-only spaces have been very useful for identifying and addressing what ‘peace' and ‘security’ really mean for women.” She contends that the systematic inequalities faced by girls and women, and the violence directed against them, are seldom discussed in open fora with men present. Yet, once these issues are put on the agenda with attention to their safety, they are readily mobilised to action. For these reasons, the research team set up a women-only focus group that was facilitated by a woman.

Erzurum and Eren (2014) advance the idea that “conflicts may also serve as an incentive to unify and mobilise women's groups at the local level.” They argue that this may lead into the development of strategies to address a range of transformative actions, including participation in decision making. Women are able to tell their own stories and they have the audience that could listen to them. Furthermore, Noma, Aker, and Freeman (2012, p. 7) add that only by allowing women peacebuilders to tell their own stories can we begin to understand the challenges as well as the opportunities for women’s active participation in peacebuilding.

During the study women were able to tell their own stories, women participated in key informant interviews, focus group discussions, as part of the community meetings, part of the workshops, and were members of the participatory research action team (PRAT) committee. Women’s personal reconciliation through building trust, healing trauma and personal empowerment has been recognised as a prerequisite to societal rebuilding (Noma, Aker & Freeman 2012). However, as Garcia (1994, cited in Erzurum & Eren 2014, p. 249) contends, women have considerable capacity to “bring creative and effective perspectives to building the peace” even in contexts of suffering. Isike and Okeke-Uzodike (2011, p. 55) argue that “women's peace agency is rooted in the values of their womanhood and an ethic of care that values relationships, inter-connectedness, and empowerment, from which springs forth empathy, co-operation, tolerance, and love.” They point out that, in precolonial African societies, women typically took a leading role in forestalling violence and in reconciliation. This was particularly true for matriarchal societies.

Research design, data collection and analysis

To understand clearly how the findings were arrived at, it is necessary to set out the use of action as the research approach. McNiff and Whitehead (2011, p. 10) state that action research is defined in terms of

… action and research, which means taking action to improve practice, and research, which is finding things out and coming to new understandings, that is, creating new knowledge. In action research the knowledge is about how and why improvement has happened.

Shozi (2023, p. 76) states that action research “is particularly concerned with bringing positive, progressive, remedial, and corrective social change or transformation”. This particular study involved participatory action research. A typical sequence within participatory action research is the identification of a problem, collection of information from key informants, then establishment of a collaboration relationship with community members (in this case, the PRAT; see below). This is followed by the collection of data and analysis, leading to the findings. After a report back, agreement is secured with participants as to an intervention. The intervention is followed by an evaluation, leading to the final report.

The study followed a qualitative research design. Dawson (2002, p. 14) argues that “qualitative research explores attitudes, behaviour, and experiences through such methods as interviews or focus groups”. While some forms of violence are readily quantified, we needed to understand the texture and interpretation of violence. The paradigm was interpretative, focused on how participants made sense of their situation. It sought to provide accounts of the events from the perspective of diverse participants; rather than relying on our assumptions as to what constituted violence and peace, we chose to foreground the perceptions as expressed by participants, especially women.

The researcher needed to go through gatekeepers, such as the municipal councillor and induna (tribal councillor or headman), to allow him to conduct the study, and checked progress with them. These were also among the key informants drawn upon; the closest police station commander and traditional headmen were also included; 50% of the key informants were women, including older women respected in the community. He then set up a PRAT of community members to help organise the action research process, such as testing ideas, assisting in recruiting participants and organisation of meetings, the intervention and report-back sessions. An interim PRAT of four members was elected, but it included no women. After insistence by the researcher on the issues of gender, at a subsequent meeting the full PRAT was elected, consisting of five women and five men.

The study at Njobokazi had three stages: discovery, intervention and evaluation. The discovery stage involved data collection through key informant interviews, focus group discussions (one with men, one with women, one mixed in the initial data collection; one mixed during the evaluation), a transect walk, and observations. Mfanozelwe Shozi carried out all data collection, except for the involvement of a female researcher, described below. During the intervention stage, two workshops were conducted. The third stage was the evaluation stage, which included further data collection through focus group discussions, a transect walk and interviews.

In terms of analysis of the data, thematic analysis was utilised as the method. Braun and Clarke (2006, p. 6) explain that “thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data”. It minimally organises and describes the data set in rich detail. For this article, we revisited the data in the study that applied to the involvement of women and generated themes specific to that issue. Given that both authors are men, we focused in particular on whether we had captured sufficiently the ways in which women spoke in focus group discussions and interviews; in addition, the findings were developed in consultation with the one woman researcher who assisted.

Gender in the research process

Apart from the composition of the PRAT, the researcher conducted 50% of key informant interviews with women and ensured that 50% of participants in the two workshops were women. In the discovery stage, one of the focus groups was made up of women, one of men, and one was mixed. The inclusion of women in the study brought perspectives and ideas that men did not. One comment was, “We thank this opportunity that as women we were given space to talk amongst ourselves because when we talk amongst men, men will say, look, so and so’s wife likes to talk”. This was one example of enabling greater safety for women participants; another was the care to keep anonymity in discussions of the data.

The researcher enlisted the services of a woman facilitator to assist with facilitation in the women’s group, where women would be uncomfortable to share with a male researcher, and also in the men’s group. The complexities were further evident when, “during the women’s focus group session, some women requested to sit on the grass mat as well as sitting on the left-hand side of the rondavel; this was respected”, even though chairs were available (Shozi 2023, p. 113). Some women would not eat in front of their in-laws at the workshop.

Certain protocols needed to be followed for the researcher, as a man, to interview women, although they did not prevent the successful carrying out of interviews. We ended confident that the research process, while accepted explicitly by men, gave far fuller opportunities for women’s voices to be heard and to influence developments than previous community processes.

Issues of ethics

Conducting a study in an area affected by violence is always tricky; for example, there is a necessity to negotiate confidentiality with much caution. The study was ethically complex and challenging because it involved people who had been through appallingly violent conflicts; they were asked to share and reflect on their experiences to a stranger. Some of these people had lost their loved ones and property, and there were instances where people who used to fight before found themselves in the same workshop or focus group. There were psychological and emotional issues raised by participants that led the researcher to involve the African Child and Youth Community Development Project, which has offices in Mntanotengayo (sub-village of Njobokazi) where it provides psycho-social services to community members. Mwanje (2001, p. 64) identifies the following ethical issues to be considered when conducting ethical research: “informed consent, confidentiality, freedom from coercion and feedback of results”. These were all addressed and attended to during the study. Ethics approval was granted on 30 May 2019 at ethics level 2 by Durban University of Technology Management Sciences: Faculty Research Ethics Committee. A letter of approval was received on 20 June 2018 from the local ward councillor for eThekwini Municipality.

Limitations

It became clear that any discussion with women on the issue of sexual abuse was the most complex challenge, as reported below. The data also reveals that there were other events that people chose not to speak of, as revealing them might lead to further violence. Furthermore, claims as to the success of the action research need to be treated with caution, as it will take a long time before one could assess the effectiveness of the action research intervention. Having to follow protocols of gender relations, such as seating, made managing the workshops complex, although this did not limit participation.

The emergence of the coronavirus posed a threat to completion of the study. The intervention workshops were postponed for nine months. Two key informant interviews were conducted by cell phone, due to travel restrictions imposed between March 2020 and August 2021. The pandemic necessitated such adjustments to research methods. Meetings with PRAT members were suspended for a time, and PRAT meetings, focus group discussions and key informant interviewees needed to observe COVID-19 protocols such as social distancing, and need to buy sanitisers and wear masks.

How warfare impacted the lives of women: Findings of the study

This section presents the themes developed from the data on the complex ways in which women became caught up in different roles in both the warfare and in the work to build peace.

Men as agents of violence and women as those who respond

In most cases, in this area decisions about going to war were historically made by men. At Njobokazi, typical triggers for violence were conflicts among men over women, competitions over Zulu dance and Imvumo oral music, the legacy of earlier disputes, and alcohol. The implications of this were that women had to respond to violence initiated by men. Women respond through assisting men by cooking, raising children and supporting families, while the men fought in the forest. Shozi (2023, p.130) reports that as follows:

… the typical pattern in the area was that, whenever Njobokazi men had a problem, they reacted to it violently. The theme of (men’s) violence as the solution to violence became evident; in such circumstances women were constantly having to respond to the realities imposed on them.

The complex role of women during outbreaks of violence

There were various accounts of instances where men fought over women. For example, there was a case in which a woman dated a man from one clan but decided to marry a man from another clan. Men from her own and the first clan abducted her, leading to increasingly violent clashes between the clans concerned. Analysis demonstrates that women are used as proxy or scapegoats for men’s issues. Fighting over women would be used as a trigger for reigniting simmering tensions a year after previous conflicts, even when the key tension seemed to stem from power and leadership positions.

In the history of the area, sometimes families would split and support competing factions. Shozi (2023, p. 135) argues that “women with relatives on the opposite side were not trusted and sometimes seen as spies”. One key informant (November 2019) stated that when men were planning war, women were chased away. She stated that men suspected women of dishonesty or of being spies, and insisted that they should not form part of the discussions of planning and execution of attacks.

However, this was different during political violence, when women formed part of the discussions but were excluded from the actual fighting. In some cases where women had been accused of spying and sharing critical and intelligent information with the opposing side, or if they were in love with someone from the opposing side, they had been killed.

As Ryan (2009, p. 220) points out:

… there has been growing interest in the role of social networks in facilitating and perpetuating migration through collective action involving families, kinships, and other communal contacts. Where, generally, women had moved to the partner’s homestead, war may transform this cultural norm and provided women with the power to choose a new place to stay.

This was true also of Njobokazi.

Thus, many people lived in fear. Men and women who were in hiding had to look over their shoulders when they went to work or were doing daily tasks. This untenable situation gave women the power to look for alternatives and to migrate to other areas. Women used their own family networks to facilitate migration.

The violence in Njobokazi had further gender implications. Carlton and Morrell (2012) report that raising livestock (mainly goats and cows) was largely the domain of males in Zulu society, while crop cultivation was mostly the responsibility of females. Boys watched over herds, passing the time by sparring with sticks. Women would cultivate land, collect water and care for children and the elderly. However, gender roles and the division of labour changed during times of fighting. Shozi (2023, p. 135) explains that “over and above performing their own responsibilities, women would during the conflict take over men’s duties as well”. Cheldelin and Mutisi (2016, p. 108) note that “violent conflict entails social upheaval, which impacts on all sectors and spheres of society”. Similarly, Lederach, Neufeldt and Culbertson (2007, p. 18) argue that violent conflict causes deep-seated cultural changes, for example, the norms that guide patterns of behaviour between elders and youth, or women and men. Thus, women in Njobokazi had to assume such roles as providing for the whole family, for tending and milking cattle.

Cheldelin and Mutisi (2016, p. 119) confirm that

… during conflict, gender roles are profoundly disrupted, and, in the process, they are opened up for reconstitution and the strategies that women deployed were part of the wider conflicts that allowed for the interrogating of existing and pre-existing constructs.

Begikhani, Hamelink and Weiss (2018, p. 8) argue that new feminist theories often challenge the popular notion of gender roles, considering the participation of women in war and militarism as part of empowering and emancipatory projects. This raises the question as to whether there were any positive gains in gender relations once conflict ended.

Women and families as victims of violence

While women would generally survive the Njobokazi violence, they took on the injuries, the painful emotions and trauma of the conflict, sometimes having to hide in fear or be displaced. The lingering traumatic memories continue to be part of their life. Women had been through horrendous and traumatic experiences where they had seen an apparently peaceful community plunged into violence, especially where previously united families were turned into enemies who could no longer visit each other.

These experiences took different forms. For example, women were required to identify dead bodies, because men were either fighting or hiding. Some relatives’ dead bodies were never recovered, and some heads were decapitated, and private parts cut out. Shozi (2023, pp. 120-121) shares that during the women’s focus group in January 2020 participants became emotional and tearful when they thought about what happened in their community – the land lost, relatives that died, lost belongings and opportunities. Karam (2000, pp. 3-4) adds that

… as orphans and/or widows of the dead, women face several consequences, such as becoming single women or sole breadwinners and heads of households and families in war-ravaged societies, often after having lost their property and/or their livelihood.

Participants shared that they would need to deal with these memories over longer periods of time. Begikhani et al. (2018) write of the long-lasting impact of war and how memories of war are inscribed on the body and soul of the survivors, sometimes as physical impairment, sometimes as trauma. Such memories become part of the social fabric for generations. These may lead to public commemorations but the memory of the trauma is also carried through less conscious practices.

In the main, it was men who were targeted, injured and killed, but there were instances where women were. There was a belief in the community of Njobokazi that, when men killed or injured a woman, their traditional medicine (intelezi) will be weak, and their opponents would find it easy to kill them. However, in a few instances women were targeted, such as when there was an attack on their family when the enemies were looking for male family members:

The most devastating aspect of the violent conflict is that so many people lost their lives, and some ended up being disabled. Scores of people were injured, some became disabled, and some even lost their limbs and eyes. Vulnerable groups like women and young children also died or were killed, for example, there were two young boys which came from the ANC Meyiwa family, aged at the time 11 and 13 years, who were killed. (Shozi 2023, p. 120)

There was only one report in the data of an instance of sexual assault, which was in fact a trigger for the last war in the area. There is no doubt that sexual abuse and rape did take place, but issues relating to tradition could have prevented female research participants from sharing such information. On this issue, there was almost complete silence on the part of women participants, even when a female researcher was brought in to engage women research participants.

The majority of people who were employed were men, typically working in Durban, Pinetown and Hammarsdale. Because men were involved in fighting and were also hiding from their enemies, they would abandon their work. Shozi (2023, p. 121) reports on the assets of local people, such as their house, goats, cows, chickens, and sheep, that would be destroyed in the conflict. The burden to provide for the family fell fully on the shoulders of women during conflict, including feeding men who were fighting. Thus, violence brought poverty to the community in the form of losing work and losing livelihoods.

Karam (2000, p.12) states that:

… some analysis points out that even after peace, women remain socially, politically, and economically marginalized and still vulnerable to violence. It is noted, for example, that single displaced women, or those with children, face more difficulties in establishing a livelihood than some of their fellow men do. The Rwandan experience highlights how, in the aftermath of genocide, women’s lack of property (since property passes only through the male members of the household), results in widows being forced off farms or being unable to return to them.

This discussion has primarily focused on women as victims, while the upcoming section will focus on women as agents of peace.

Women as agents of peace

A limitation of literature on peace building is that it tends to focus on women as victims, not sufficiently recognising the potential for women to be social agents, including their capacity to act to build peace.

While the women of Njobokazi often supported their husbands’ decisions to fight, there were those who questioned the desire of men to always want to fight. Some key informant interviewees reported that they would speak to their husbands to stop the war because it was destructive. Although men were fighting, women from opposing sides would meet one another and would not fight and would talk about the war and other matters confronting the community. In one specific case, where a man had been injured, his wife threw herself on top of him to protect him, correctly believing that the attackers would not strike her (Shozi 2023, p. 136).

There had been times when there had been deadlock among the fighting groups. In these instances, they would not know how to communicate with the opposite side. Women played a critical role in brokering or initiating communication between the sides. Shozi (2023, p. 137) adds that “there were instances where women opened communication channels for peace building to take place. During times of conflict, women broker and link the warring sides.” This happened when it was difficult for warring factions to communicate with one another, but women would also play a role in mending ruined relationships. Women who had fiancées or boyfriends or close family members on the opposing side would be sent to deliver the news of a meeting or how the violence should be resolved.

Shozi (2023, p. 137) reports one woman’s account during the women’s focus group (January 2020):

… one day she was brave and took public transport to Ntshongweni because community members asked her to deliver a letter to the warrior captain (Induna yezinsizwa) of the opposite side. The letter was proposing a meeting which should be held to discuss the peace building process. Because of that letter the opposing sides were able to meet to start the discussions.

Literature demonstrates that peacebuilding initiatives are largely carried by men. In some instances, women broker peace, but they are not recognised.

Karam (2000, p. 10) argues that

… strategies which can ultimately lead to a sustainable peace cannot be left only to men. It is also an issue of giving voice to the needs, experiences, demands, and hopes of a diverse array of people, to form an integral part of an evolving society. In fact, whether it is women who have fought alongside men or women who have had to maintain the ‘home front’, or those who have simply suffered in any of the above situations, the manner of responding and catering to their well-being necessitates specific attention.

Even before the action research, women had started to lobby their family members to stop the conflict, although they stated that men would generally not listen.

That is what one woman said of her husband:

I am married to a person who liked to fight and if ever he had an argument with someone, he would resolve that through hitting or beating him. Even his brothers trusted him that if they had an argument or fought with someone, he was always there to help them fight that person or come to their rescue. He was a good fighter, and he would win almost all his stick fighting bouts … One day I confronted him; I spoke to my husband and told him that I do not like his behaviour and informed him that I did not love a perpetrator of violence and fighter. I further told him that if he continues with beating people with no apparent reason, I would leave him and go back home … He stopped doing that; even now he does not like to see our community engulfed by violence. (Shozi 2023, p.137)

Another woman shared that:

… men were not telling us what should happen. Why were they fighting? But as women because we were concerned about the impact of the violence; we would in our corners confide to our husbands and boyfriends that they must stop fighting, but men would never listen. (Shozi 2023, p. 136)

During the peace-making in Njobokazi, women formed part of these discussions, which started at the beginning of 1996 at Magaba. Although not many women participated, there were some who contributed to the discussions. During these discussions it was agreed that cleansing should be done.

Shozi (2023, p. 145) argues that, during violent conflict, some families had become divided between different warring factions. In some instances, some family members killed one another. After violence ended, families needed to come together and make peace with one another in family cleansing ceremonies. These followed the overall Njobokazi cleansing ceremony, which took place in 1999, and several families most involved in violence reconciled themselves. Women were instrumental in ensuring that these cleansing ceremonies happened, often consulting with their pastors to ask them to lead them.

The involvement of women in the Njobokazi study helped women to reflect about violence, to help develop peacebuilding strategies, to craft possible roles that they could have played during violence, and to use knowledge and experience gained during violence to build peace going forward. Women indicated during the evaluation of the study that the study itself was a peacebuilding exercise that helped women to ponder their own role during conflict and peacebuilding.

As Shozi (2023, p. 146) explains:

After sharing the research results with the community of Njobokazi, the community considered the implications of the findings of the Njobokazi study and indicated that there is a need for a further intervention that would result in people being emotionally healed and being trained in peace building skills. As a result, the researcher in partnership with the PRAT developed an intervention, consisting of two workshops, that was attuned to deal with Njobokazi violent conflict situation.

Both workshops were highly participatory. First was the Healing of Memories workshop, which explored how the 30 participants experienced a sense of trauma from the violence of the past and assessed the implications for handling conflicts in the present. There was also an Alternatives to Violence workshop.

Evaluation of these two workshops demonstrated that the issue of healing is something that participants took for granted, but after the community healing session most members saw the importance of this and even wanted to enrol their family members. The workshops made people of Njobokazi realise the need for engaging in psycho-social services. Members of the community demonstrated that they would now approach local social workers if they needed help (Shozi 2023, p. 224). Claiming success for such initiatives is difficult, although initial indications have been that the area has not returned to the factional conflicts of the past (Shozi 2023, p. 205).

Discussion

Much of what we have reported provides evidence of the ways in which men’s decisions to go to war imposed immense burdens on women, in terms of direct violence against them and the sustained structural violence of patriarchy. Warfare intensified the burden of care, destroyed family assets, often left women as widows and displaced them and those they took care of to other areas. Those who survived the violence were left with long memories of trauma.

Warfare also had other implications that challenged traditional roles of power. During migration, Njobokazi women had the power to decide where the families would be moved to. This was affected by relationships that they had with other families and relatives. In most cases, women migrated to places of their choice and men had to follow or obey the women’s decision making. Taking up men’s traditional roles while they were away fighting involved taking decisions about crucial assets and resources. This resulted in women deciding about cows, chickens, and other family belongings, and whether to sell them or ship them to the new place. In this process, women would demonstrate their capacity for finding solutions and acting with greater independence.

Potentially, this could help change the prevailing social relations; Brown (2005, p. 174) writes of “

… the hope that, despite the dislocation, miseries and hardships always associated with war, it can also profoundly affect women’s personal well-being, their status and role in the family, their access to economic resources, their political participation and their general attitudes and perceptions … . [and] also open new opportunities for changing existing gender stratification (Kumar, 2001: 25).

He adds that in reality, as he notes, these hopes are seldom fully met. Reversion to peace may in reality also be reversion to patriarchy; it may thus, in Galtung’s (1969) term, be a reversion to a ‘negative peace’. Thus, Karam (2000, p. 7) argues that

… the explanation generally given has been that during times of crisis, ‘the interests of the nation’ as a whole must be given greater consideration over specifically gendered concerns, begging the question of why gendered concerns are not central to the definition of the nation’s concerns as a whole.

Njobokazi women played a crucial role in lobbying their husbands, brothers, and fathers to stop the direct violence. They were not always successful in that, leading to their decision to leave the area, with men following them. When they were out of the area, they participated in discussions that brought people to talk together and find a solution to the problem. Women had joined in the 1999 cleansing ceremonies that paved the way for people to stay together. While women demonstrated greater capacity for peace-making, they had both taken on additional work during the violence and, in peace, took on further work in advancing peace.

While women are typically seen as peacemakers, they are not only in this role. However, as Chedelin and Eliatamby (2011, p. xi) remind us, “today, no serious relevant and sustained negotiation process may be achieved without the input, influence and debate generated by women.” Thus, initiatives to build peace must of necessity involve women from the outset. This may require complex ways of organising in the context of traditional gender relations.

For this reason, the deliberate steps taken to involve women in the peacebuilding processes in the action research were designed not only to lead to a more secure peace, but also open the possibility to shifting gender relations.

To what extent, then, can the study claim to have built a sense of positive peace? Because of the delays caused by the pandemic, the evaluation of the workshops took place a full year after they were held. Inadvertently, this allowed participants longer time to reflect on what had been achieved. We were thus struck by how strongly both men and women asserted that the process had led to a more harmonious community.

We cannot claim that the study was sufficient to bring peace to the area; that is the responsibility of the community. The role of Mfanozelwe Shozi as researcher, though, was to serve as a catalyst in assisting community members to move towards the deeper peace that members had aspired to.

Conclusion

Despite the limitations placed on the women of Njobokazi historically and their extreme vulnerability at times of violence, we have demonstrated their capacity for taking leadership roles in advancing peace.

There is evidence that the study achieved its overall aim of bringing greater peace to the area. However, possibly the most significant finding from this study is how warfare, though immensely damaging, may become the spark that leads into building a positive peace that is both more secure and is open to changing gender relations.

Further research and interventions in communities plagued by violent conflicts should recognise the value of involving women fully from the earliest stages of conflict.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dizline Mfanozelwe Shozi

DIZLINE MFANOZELWE SHOZI is Project Manager for Durban University of Technology’s Imbali Education and Innovation Precinct. He was the chairperson of the South African Commission for Gender Equality. He is currently a Sonke Gender Justice board member, chairperson of the Valley Trust Board and chairperson of the African Child and Youth Community Development Project. He holds a PhD in Peace Studies from his studies at the International Centre of Nonviolence, Durban University of Technology. Email: [email protected]

Crispin Hemson

CRISPIN HEMSON is former Director and now Adjunct Lecturer in the International Centre of Nonviolence, Durban University of Technology. His current research is in developing educators who have the capacity for advancing peace. He is also an active environmentalist who helps the city to manage a nature reserve, Pigeon Valley. Email: [email protected]