Since 2012, Mali has tried hard to move forward out of its worst security and political crisis. To date, massive international and national stabilisation efforts have failed to produce fundamental improvements. However, other potential solutions, such as the application of indigenous, home-based countermeasures, through which disputes and violent tensions were prevented and resolved in Mali’s past, have hardly been considered. The paper tries to fill this gap and seeks to analyse the role indigenous practices, administered by customary authorities, play in contemporary Malian society. It also examines the extent to which traditional institutions can be used to contribute towards the improvement of the current multidimensional crisis. The study was made possible by the author’s field research in the southern capital of Bamako and surrounding areas, kindly supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, West Africa. The main findings of this report are based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted there in February and March 2018.