Authors:
Irene Sephton
Published:
2019

This thesis invites the reader on a journey to Kamina, the capital of the Haut-Lomami province, DRC, to engage in a dialogue on humanness, violence and peace from another angle. Using the concept of Búmùntù (authentic Personhood) from the Luba tradition to guide such a dialogue, I consider the place and meaning of peace associated with this concept and consider the struggle for such a peace in the contemporary local landscape, replete with its restless and unatoned bones. Far from the image of a perennial heart of darkness, a dialogue on Búmùntù offers a humanising narrative of the struggle for peace. It points to the existence of a rich tradition, which places peace (expressed more often as social harmony) as the defining characteristic of our humanness.