The war which ravaged Mozambique after independence in 1975 lasted for sixteen years. It saw an estimated one million deaths, extensive destruction of infrastructures, and a stalling of most of the economy, leaving the country at the end of the war in 1992 on its knees. The armed conflict and its history and memory are still divisive subjects in Mozambique today, but the state's official policy of amnesty and silent memory has reduced the number of public discussions and disagreements on the subject. Academically, several books and articles have been published on the war during the conflict, with a spike in the 1990s after peace returned to the country. Their number has however steadily decreased since then. Hence, while some aspects of the conflict have been well studied, in particular the origins of Renamo, the involvement of foreign powers, the extent of destruction, the situation of refugees, and the ending of the conflict, several other dimensions have still not been investigated properly, if at all. Moreover, the dominant perspective remains that which emerged with the ending of the war.

The aim of the present book is to revisit the history of the civil war in Mozambique. The approach adopted is purposely encompassing: it aims at investigating the conflict as a ‘total social phenomenon’, a la Marcel Mauss, as events which involved all elements of society and had implications on all facets of life within all regions of the country, ‘at once legal, economic, religious, aesthetic, morphological and so on’. A first implication of this approach is that the present volume aims at studying all actors of the war, not just the Frelimo government and the Renamo guerrilla, and analysing the war beyond its sole military dimension, that is, also the social, economic and ideological aspects. The present book deals with Frelimo and Renamo as well other armed movements, including Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique (PRM), state militia, popular militia and private military forces. It also deals with other non-military actors such as churches, healers and traders. To do this effectively, the volume has opted to focus on the local dynamics of the conflict – at the provincial level, the district level or at the level of a village – so as to gain a richer and deeper understanding of actors, their motivations, means, interactions and articulations, and a finer comprehension of the specific nature and consequences of the conflict.