Inter-community meetings as a mechanism for ‘bottom-up peacebuilding’ in Mali: Beliefs, uses, and limits of a politics of substitution (1990–2019)

As a part of the overall peace process spearheaded by the Malian state and its partners in conflict management, an extensive programme of inter-community dialogue was launched in 2013–14, bringing back into play the practice of ‘bottom-up reconciliation’ initiated in the 1990s. In questioning the origins, mechanisms, and limitations of a specific mechanism—inter-community meetings (ICMs)— used within the framework of this attempt at dialogue, the following article offers a critical analysis of the issues raised by the introduction of the normative frameworks imposed by this model of conflict resolution.