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Abstract
This article discusses the complex motivations underlying local resistance to externally led post-war peacebuilding programmes. In examining the land distribution process in post-war Cambodia it proposes a five-part typology of motivations for the resistance that frequently appears in the context of international post-conflict peacebuilding processes. The article also argues that a single campaign of resistance is likely to involve multiple actors with multiple motivations.
Notes
1. Out of a wide range of examples, a few recent empirical studies include Visoka, “International Governance”; Oliveira, “Illiberal Peacebuilding in Angola”; Ylönen, “Limits of ‘Peace through Statebuilding’”; and Shlash and Tom, “Is Liberal Democracy Possible in Iraq?”
2. Lederach, Building Peace; Paris, “Peacebuilding”; Pugh, “Peacemaking and Critical Theory”; Richmond, The Transformation of Peace; Chandler, Empire in Denial; Cooper, “On the Crisis of the Liberal Peace”; Tsing, Friction; and Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War.
3. Lee and Özerdem, Local Ownership in International Peacebuilding.
4. Alfred and Corntassel, “Being Indigenous”; Newman and Richmond, Challenges to Peacebuilding; and Bojicic-Dzelilovic, “Peace on whose Terms?”
5. Scott, Weapons of the Weak; Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance; and de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life.
6. For example Melucci, “Social Movements”; Foucault, The Care of the Self; Escobar, Encountering Development; and Bhabha, The Location of Culture.
7. Just a few examples include Richmond, A Post-liberal Peace; Richmond, “Resistance and the Post-liberal Peace”; Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance; Mac Ginty, “Indicators +”; Lijn, “Imagi-Nation Building in Illusionstan”; Galvanek, Translating Peacebuilding Rationalities into Practice; Lilja, Power, Resistance and Women Politicians; and Pouligny, Peace Operations seen from Below.
8. Hellmüller, “The Power of Perceptions”; Dougherty, “Right-sizing International Criminal Justice”; and Richmond and Mitchell, Hybrid Forms of Peace, 10.
9. It should be noted, however, that a few studies, such as Young, “Conceptualizing Resistance,” attempt to revisit the issues of motivation.
10. McNamara, “UN Human Rights Activities”; and Murotani, “Land Problems in Cambodia.”
11. Williams, “Stability, Justice, and Rights.”
12. World Bank, cited in So, Land Rights in Cambodia, 3.
13. Murotani, “Land Problems in Cambodia.”
14. Figueiredo and Walraven, Cambodia; and Savat Chhey, interview with the author, Svay Rieng, November 2014.
15. Adler et al., Legal Pluralism and Equity; Sekiguchi and Hatsukano, “Land Conflicts and Land Registration”; Un and So, “Land Rights in Cambodia”; Williams, “Title through Possession or Position?”; and Oxfam, Land Ownership Disputes in Cambodia.
16. Oxfam, Participation in Land Reform.
17. Ibid.
18. Murotani, “Land Problems in Cambodia,” 204.
19. LICADHO, Human Rights 2013.
20. Murotani, “Land Problems in Cambodia.”
21. NFC, The Statistical Analysis of Land Disputes in Cambodia.
22. World Bank, Justice for the Poor?
23. CCHR, Cambodia, 4.
24. Galvanek, Translating Peacebuilding Rationalities into Practice; and Vinthagen and Lilja, “Understanding ‘Resistance’.”
25. Scott, Weapons of the Weak.
26. Vinthagen, “Understanding Resistance”; and Richmond, “Resistance and the Post-liberal Peace.”
27. Definition from the OED.
28. Peercy, Local Leadership in Democratic Transition; and Zahar, “Norm Transmission.”
29. Chenda So, interview with the author, Battambang, November 2014; and Savat Chhey, interview with the author.
30. Muth So, interview with the author, Svay Rieng, November 2014.
31. Lee and Mac Ginty, “Context and Postconflict Referendums”; MacKintosh, “Gender and Economics”; Scott and Tilly, Women, Work and Family; and Moser and Peake, Women, Human Settlement and Housing.
32. Krom samaki (literally, solidarity group) is a form of communal labour that was widely applied during the 1980s. Although people were supposed to work collectively on agricultural activities, land plots were assigned on a family basis. For more details, see Figueiredo and Walraven, Cambodia; and Savat Chhey, interview with the author.
33. Sophal and Acharya, Land Transactions in Cambodia, 36.
34. Oxfam, Land Ownership Disputes in Cambodia, 9.
35. Bunroeub Khiev, interview with the author, Battambang, November 2014; and So Muth, interview with the author.
36. Oxfam, Participation in Land Reform.
37. An estimated one million refugees were prevented from receiving any land because of the lack of effective administration at the provincial level. See Figueiredo and Walraven, Cambodia, 6; Williams, “Stability, Justice, and Rights”; and Murotani, “Land Problems in Cambodia.”
38. Grimsditch et al., Access to Land Title in Cambodia, 2.
39. Ibid., 17.
40. Savat Chhey, interview with the author.
41. Ostheimer, “Mozambique’s Tainted Parliamentary and Presidential Elections”; and Mac Ginty, “Between Resistance and Compliance.”
42. Muth So, interview with the author. A number of other (classified) reports issued by the UNDP during the mid-1990s confirm this as well.
43. Oxfam, Participation in Land Reform; and Figueiredo and Walraven, Cambodia, 18.
44. Williams, “Title through Possession or Position?”
45. Hartman, Cambodian Land Law, 118.
46. In this sense it is debatable whether the resistance resulting from restrictive conditions can be categorised as a type of resistance. This study included it as such because many field practitioners appreciate the negative roles played by such non-participation.
47. Land Law 1992, Article 76.
48. So, Land Rights in Cambodia; and Sophal and Acharya, Land Transactions in Cambodia.
49. Figueiredo and Walraven, Cambodia, 4.
50. Sophal and Acharya, Land Transactions in Cambodia, 36.
51. Das, “The Act of Witnessing,” 222; and Mahmood, “Religious Reason and Secular Affect.”
52. Reich, ‘Local Ownership’ in Conflict Transformation Projects, 13–14.
53. The author is grateful for the constructive discussion and feedback on this subject provided between 2012 and 2014 by Rukshan Ratnam (UN, Liberia), Adolf Gerstle (UNIREP, Uganda), Raul Rosende (UN-OCHA, Syria), Rahmathullah Mohamed (UN-Habitat, Sri Lanka) and Melissa Mullan (Danish Demining Group, Liberia).
54. World Bank, World Development Report 2011; and Lee and Park, “Nurturing Local Voice.”