The Local, the ‘Indigenous’ and the Limits of Rethinking Peacebuilding
Randazzo, Elisa. 2021. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 15, no. 2: 141-160.
This article advocates the study of relationality where interactions and relations between both internal and external actors are not “already established” but are, instead, co-constitutive. It asserts the need to move beyond the “local turn”, which tokenizes local ownership in peacebuilding, by engaging with indigenous knowledge, customs, and structures. In doing so, peacebuilders effectively challenge their own foundational assumptions and conceptualizations of peace and peacebuilding, thereby better equipping them to avoid “othering” the very communities they seek to help.