Traditional and modern dispute resolution mechanisms: an analysis of the preferred method by the people of senior chief Ndubeni’s chiefdom.
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Date
2022-07-27
Authors
Moonga, Billy
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
Traditional societies are those that are governed by customs and traditions of a particular
group of people. The leadership structures of such societies consist of a chief or a king, and
village headman and other local leaders. These are the people who take care of the day to
day happenings in the chiefdom or village and they help to make sure that people live in
harmony. Despite the presence of all these leaders, conflicts still occur among the people
and this threatens the peace. The focus of this study was to investigate the occurrence of
conflicts in senior chief Ndubeni’s chiefdom and establish what method of dispute
resolution is preferred by the local people of this chiefdom between the modern or western
dispute resolution mechanism and the indigenous or traditional dispute resolution
mechanism.
The study was undertaken in order to understand how conflicts are resolved between
people in a traditional society, particularly senior chief Ndubeni’s chiefdom in Mpongwe
district. The research process involved the collection of data through scheduled semistructured
interview guides which were administered in person by the researcher in order
to obtain primary data. The major findings of the study were that the local people of senior
chief Ndubeni’s chiefdom prefer to use the indigenous method of dispute resolution to the
western method. The two methods of dispute resolution, the traditional and the western,
are available to the people of chief Ndubeni’s chiefdom but there is a perceived preference
for the indigenous method due to its easy accessibility and affordability to the local people.
The study found out that the common causes of conflicts among the people in the
chiefdom include high consumption of alcohol especially by the younger members of the
community. The reason why there is so much beer drinking is because of lack of access to
education and the lack of recreational facilities to keep the young people engaged. It is
therefore imperative that measures be put in place to address these issues which increase
the likelihood of conflict by establishing recreational facilities such as soccer fields,
basketball courts and other sporting facilities. Also, there is need to increase access to
education for the young people so that they can be kept away from the abuse of substances
such as alcohol. It is also necessary that measures be put in place to increase awareness
among the local people on the importance of both the indigenous methods and the western
methods of resolving conflicts.
Description
Thesis
Keywords
Traditional courts--Conflict resolution. , Traditional conflicts.