Beyond the local turn divide: lessons learnt, relearnt and unlearnt

Abstract

This article builds on the contributions to this special issue by examining different approaches to the local turn and what can be learnt from applying them. The contributors agree on the imperative of understanding ‘the local’ in peacebuilding; however, there seems to be a multitude of ways forward in this regard. The immediate concern is how this acknowledgement translates into practices that allow for both efficiency and local emancipation in the building of peace. The article suggests giving up the ‘one-size-fits-all’ model of peacebuilding and engaging in context-based methods and research designs beyond generalisations. One way to go about this is to strive for interdisciplinary research – combining peace studies and political science with social anthropologists and area studies – but also to involve ‘the locals’ themselves in the process of taking a few methodological steps further.

Keywords:

• local turn
• peacebuilding
• policy making
• context-based methods
• efficiency
• emancipation

Notes

1. Hydén, this issue.

2. Mac Ginty, this issue.

3. Kappler, this isssue.

4. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”

5. Kappler, this issue.

6. Ibid.

7. Kappler and Richmond, “Peacebuilding and Culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” 265.

8. Hughes, this issue; and Kappler, this issue.

9. Kappler and Richmond, “Peacebuilding and Culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” 268–270.

10. Hughes, “Friction.”

11. Eastmond and Mannergren Selimovic, “Silence as Possibility.”

12. Arandel et al., this issue; Hasselskog and Schierenbeck, this issue; Hydén this issue; and Kappler, this issue.

13. Hellman and Forell, ‘Who is Rebuilding Aceh?”

14. Hasselskog and Schierenbeck, this issue.

15. Reflexivity is broadly defined as turning back on oneself, a process of self-reference. Davies, “Reflexivity and Ethnographic Research,” 4.

16. Hughes, “Friction,” 146.

17. Hellman and Forell, “Who is Rebuilding Aceh?,” 68. See also Li Murray and her concept of ‘ethnography of government’. Murray, The Will to Improve.

18. Lederach, Preparing for Peace, 51.