University of Hertfordshire

TY - JOUR

T1 - Hybrid peace revisited: an opportunity for considering self-governance?

AU - Bargués-Pedreny, Pol

AU - Randazzo, Elisa

N1 - © 2018 Global South Ltd.

PY - 2018/4/4

Y1 - 2018/4/4

N2 - Critical peacebuilding scholars have focused on the impact of the encounter between the ‘local’ and the ‘international’, framing the notion of ‘hybridity’ as a conceptual mirror to the reality of such encounter. This paper explores a dual aspect of hybridity to highlight a tension. Understood as a descriptor of contingent realities that emerge after the international–local encounter, hybridity requires acknowledging that peacebuilders can do little to shape the course of events. Yet, framed as a process that can enable the pursuit of empowering solutions embedded in plurality and relationality, hybridity encourages forms of interventionism that may perpetuate the binaries and exclusions usually associated to the liberal peace paradigm. The paper suggests that when hybridity is used to improve peacebuilding practice, an opportunity may be missed to open up this tension and analytically discuss options, including withdrawal which, whilst largely left out of the conceptual picture, may be relevant to calls for reclaiming the self-governance of the subjects of peacebuilding themselves.

AB - Critical peacebuilding scholars have focused on the impact of the encounter between the ‘local’ and the ‘international’, framing the notion of ‘hybridity’ as a conceptual mirror to the reality of such encounter. This paper explores a dual aspect of hybridity to highlight a tension. Understood as a descriptor of contingent realities that emerge after the international–local encounter, hybridity requires acknowledging that peacebuilders can do little to shape the course of events. Yet, framed as a process that can enable the pursuit of empowering solutions embedded in plurality and relationality, hybridity encourages forms of interventionism that may perpetuate the binaries and exclusions usually associated to the liberal peace paradigm. The paper suggests that when hybridity is used to improve peacebuilding practice, an opportunity may be missed to open up this tension and analytically discuss options, including withdrawal which, whilst largely left out of the conceptual picture, may be relevant to calls for reclaiming the self-governance of the subjects of peacebuilding themselves.

U2 - 10.1080/01436597.2018.1447849

DO - 10.1080/01436597.2018.1447849

M3 - Article

VL - 39

SP - 1543

EP - 1560

JO - Third World Quarterly

JF - Third World Quarterly

SN - 0143-6597

IS - 8

ER -