A Conceptual Unpacking of Hybridity: Accounting for Notions of Power, Politics and Progress in Analyses of Aid-Driven Interfaces

Abstract

The concept of hybridity is increasingly employed as an analytical tool to explore the varieties and outcomes of externally led interventions, and in some cases is portrayed as a desirable political project that could stimulate alternative and counter hegemonic programming. This article critically explores this trend in peace and development studies by examining some of the tenets and critiques of the concept of hybridity with the aim of furthering its development as a useful conceptual tool. It also explores the underlying normative implications and rhetoric that underpin some of the work on hybridity in these fields. In doing so, it offers a set of queries that could be used to explore practices, impacts and potential alternatives in peace and development programming.

Letter from the Editors: Taking the Hybridity Agenda Further

“…Rather than vaguely referring to plural social orders simply cohabiting and exchanging, Balthasar suggests that rule standardization ('rules of the game' and 'rules of the mind') is at play behind every single statebuilding attempt. If Balthasar's framework can coexist with and contribute to the hybridity literature, the author, along with other scholars (Millar 2014;Peterson 2012), challenges the academic community to further refine the concepts of hybridity and hybridization. Finally, Laura McLeod's contribution, 'A Feminist Approach to Hybridity: Understanding Local and International Interactions in Producing Post-conflict Gender Security', develops a feminist critique of the concept of hybridity, something that has been missing-or silenced-in the recent literature on the subject.…”

The Cosmopolitan Military

“…However, there is also the danger of overstating the socio-cultural dichotomy between interveners and local populations. Peterson (2012) identifies a weakness in the debate on hybridity in the tendency to construct binaries between the international and local, as if they were both homogenous and fundamentally distinct entities. She goes on to suggest that "if one admits that there is no pure form, then the entities supposedly engaged in hybridisation are likely themselves hybrid, hybridised from an earlier set of encounters" (Peterson, 2012: 13).…”

“…This is reflective of a world of very divergent viewpoints, rather than one characterised by a shared, unitary cosmopolitan normative framework, in tension with pockets of resistance. In a world where we are all 'hybrids' of one kind or another, the conception of homogenous and compliant cosmopolitan 'islands of civility' is a remarkably reductionist rendering of human society (Schaefer, 2010;Peterson, 2012). The diversity of opinion, and in some cases dissent, which may characterise proceedings in the micro-dialogic communities could, in many respects, enrich the process of interaction between the interveners and local populations.…”

Talking past each other: Regional and domestic resistance in the Burundian intervention scene

“…For example, certain elites have a clear advantage in that they can 'talk the talk' of international peacebuilding (Heathershaw, 2010). Not all domestic forces possess the capabilities required to critically engage with interveners (Hughes, 2013;Peterson, 2012).…”