Integrating subjectivities of power and violence in peacebuilding analysis

Abstract

Over the last 20 years the local domain has gained widespread attention in the analysis of peacebuilding. While this debate has contributed to an important review of many assumptions underlying peacebuilding practice and analysis, the subjective domain of peacebuilding -how actors experience and make sense of these transformations -still needs to be more methodically explored. In particular, while different narratives of peace have been analysed in this literature, much more rarely has there been a systematic discussion linking peace with power and violence and the different understandings and experiences around these two concepts. In this article I argue that integrating violence and power more systematically in the local turn and exploring their subjective domain can greatly benefit this debate, including by contributing to the elaboration of conceptual and theoretical tools more aligned with Southern epistemologies.

Introduction – Peacebuilding Amidst Violence

“…Despite seemingly lofty goals, the track record of international peacebuilding practices has been disappointing when judged against the promise of building a stable, liberal and democratic state (Mac Ginty and Sanghera 2012). Furthermore, we have seen an increasing number of conflicts remaining in a liminal neither-war-nor-peace state, with recurring waves of violence, prevailing high-levels of insecurity, peace arrangements broken and ignored, commitments to peace reduced to the lip services of political elites or attuned to behind-the-scene elite bargains, and even arrested processes of state reconstruction with authorities under violent contestation (Balthasar 2017;de Vries and Schomerus 2017;Klem 2018;Maschietto 2020;Nilsson and González Marín 2020;Öjendal and Ou 2015;Raeymaekers 2013;True 2020).…”

“…Peacebuilding amidst violence thus presents a core dilemma for peacebuilding as policy arena, as well as for the academic fields devoted to studying these. How can one pursue peace amidst, parallel to, despite, and even often thanks to continuing violence in a multitude of shapes and forms (Balthasar 2017;Laurie and Shaw 2018;Maschietto 2020;Nilsson and González Marín 2020;Perera 2017;Steinert, Steinert, and Carey 2019;True 2020;cf. Björkdahl and Höglund 2013)?…”