Peacebuilding and Friction

Global and Local Encounters in Post Conflict-Societies

Annika Björkdahl, Kristine Höglund, Gearoid Millar, Jair van der Lijn, Willemijn Verkoren

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317365266
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Paix et développement mondial

This book aims to understand the processes and outcomes that arise from frictional encounters in peacebuilding, when global and local forces meet.

Building a sustainable peace after violent conflict is a process that entails competing ideas, political contestation and transformation of power relations. This volume develops the concept of 'friction' to better analyse the interplay between global ideas, actors, and practices, and their local counterparts. The chapters examine efforts undertaken to promote sustainable peace in a variety of locations, such as Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Sierra Leone. These case analyses provide a nuanced understanding not simply of local processes, or of the hybrid or mixed agencies, ideas, and processes that are generated, but of the complex interactions that unfold between all of these elements in the context of peacebuilding intervention. The analyses demonstrate how the ambivalent relationship between global and local actors leads to unintended and sometimes counterproductive results of peacebuilding interventions. The approach of this book, with its focus on friction as a conceptual tool, advances the peacebuilding research agenda and adds to two ongoing debates in the peacebuilding field; the debate on hybridity, and the debate on local agency and local ownership. In analysing frictional encounters this volume prepares the ground for a better understanding of the mixed impact peace initiatives have on post-conflict societies.

This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, security studies, and international relations in general.

1 Frictional spaces

Transitional justice between the global and the local

Susanne Buckley-Zistel¹

Introduction

The notion of friction introduced by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2005) has recently gained considerable interest within various disciplines, including conflict studies. As a metaphor, the term denotes the rubbing of different materials against each other, signifying moments of discord, contention, and conflict in the encounter of different actors pursuing different ideas. In conflict studies, more precisely, the notion of friction has been employed to analyse the heterogeneous and often unequal encounters between agents of the so-called global and the so-called local level in order to expose the dynamics at play in peacebuilding processes in post-conflict societies. The concept’s heuristic value is that it shifts the focus away from the outcome of such an encounter to the process of engagement.²

Despite the popularity of the concept, thus far it has largely remained under-theorised. The objective of this chapter is to provide more analytical depth by reading it through the lens of spatial theory, in particular, that advanced by contributions to critical geography. To this end, it takes a closer look at the scalar levels of global and local at the heart of the concept, and explores how their rubbing against each other – their friction – can be conceptualised.

This chapter is situated in the field of peace and conflict studies where spatial concerns are central despite receiving little consideration.³ Their importance derives from the fact that the notions of global and local serve as both a topographic ordering and a scaling of relationships (and hierarchies). In the area of peacebuilding, in particular, discussions about how global (meaning external) actors engage with local conflicts are vibrant. Couched in these debates, the chapter focuses its analysis on one particular intervention to promote the building of peace; transitional justice. It does, however, make wider claims that extend the empirical focus to other situations in which the global and the local interact.

Transitional justice refers to forms of dealing with the past in the aftermath of violent (political or societal) conflict, such as wars, dictatorships, or genocides. It is based on the assumption that it is essential to reveal the truth about human rights violations, hold perpetrators accountable, vindicate the dignity of the victims, and – potentially – contribute to reconciliation, in order to provide justice. Over the course of the past two decades, ideas regarding transitional justice and practices of it have proliferated so that hardly any peace treaty is signed today without including an institution to deal with the legacy of violence. The global spread of transitional justice has made it a rule rather than an exception, leading Iavor Rangelov and Ruti Teitel to declare that ‘[w]e are in what might be called the global phase of transitional justice’ (2009: 162). Its pervasive normative framework on the global scale, the international networks of entrepreneurs who advance its application, as well as the inherent ‘evangelical optimism of liberalism’ (Hazan, 2007: 10), embed it firmly within the wider paradigm of liberal peace underlying peacebuilding interventions in general.

Increasingly, scholarly contributions voice their criticism of external interventions as inept at fostering peace. They argue that local, place-based perspectives are vital to comprehend how the global project impacts on societies and constituencies affected by the experience of violent conflict and repression, as well as by the experience of externally induced transitional justice. Much of the literature takes a rather critical stance, suggesting that there is a mismatch between global aspirations and local realities. In this chapter, this critique serves as a starting point for probing into the constitution of and relationship between the global and the local, as well as into how their rubbing against each other produces friction. It thus begins with the exploration of more recent contributions to the field that focus on the relationship between the global norm and its entrepreneurs, on the one hand, and the context of local post-violence settings, on the other.

I develop my argument in several steps. First, notwithstanding the pertinence of this critical scholarship, which challenges the global concept from below, I argue that it often creates a somewhat one-dimensional stance that is ignorant of the connection between and mutually constitutive nature of the local and the global. In a second step, I briefly introduce Tsing’s notion of friction before turning to spatial theory to explore the notions of global, local and friction in greater depth. Following this, I link this discussion back to the notion of transitional justice and its local and global dimensions. Importantly, this chapter marks a first attempt in connecting spatial theory to conflict studies, which can be developed further. Consequently, by way of conclusion I offer some thoughts to stimulate further research.

Why space?

Let’s pause a moment to consider the question: why space? Space refers to areas around, within and between objects; it marks the expanse in which objects exist. According to Henri Lefebvre (2009: 186–187), space is always social for it assigns more or less appropriate locations to social relations. For instance, transitional justice entrepreneurs sit in offices, judges in courtrooms, and commissioners in truth commission offices. These sites determine, inter alia, the agents’ potential to interact (for instance, due to their physical proximity or accessibility), their social status, and related power hierarchies, as well as their political opportunity structures. At the hybrid court Extraordinary Chamber at the Court of Cambodia (ECCC), for instance, space is clearly and strictly divided, fenced off, and policed between areas for people who play an official role in the Court – including international staff – and for those who do not, such as Cambodian civil society court monitors. This regulates access to social and political power networks, information, and, last but not least, cappuccinos.

So what is the benefit of a spatial perspective, what can it reveal that is concealed by other approaches, and why does it matter? First, a spatial perspective draws attention to the fact that spatial discussions are already very much at the centre of transitional justice discourse and practice. Local and global make references to a topographic ordering and a scaling of relationships and hierarchies. Second, following Sigrid Weigel (2002), spaces turn into text (or text-like representations) that can be read. The way they are referred to by various audiences might be insightful for understanding the politics behind the different readings. Note for instance (topological) markers such as global, global North, centre or Western on one side, and local, global South, periphery, and local–local on the other, often used as synonyms within their ascribed containers, albeit referring to profoundly different social and political constellations. Third, including space in the analysis helps to explain why some forms of agency are enabled, while others remain constrained. Physical transitional justice markers such as memorials, courtrooms, or think tanks in New York provide the material structures in which agency occurs and where it manifests itself, but also determine how it is inhibited.

Fourth, in a circular move, spatial perspectives draw attention to the social construction of spaces and their contingency. It allows for thinking beyond what there is at present, and encourages agency and resistance, and, ultimately, change. If we accept that scales are not ontological entities, but the result of exchanges (academic, practical, etc.), we have to ask how they have come about, what they signify, how they may be challenged.

The global norm of transitional justice and local perspectives

So how is the encounter between global and local norms problematised in the field of transitional justice? Recent studies criticise the application of global transitional justice from a place-based perspective or from below (McEvoy and McGregor, 2008, Shaw and Waldorf, 2010). It has been suggested that the field needs to face ‘the messiness of global and transnational involvements and the local, on the ground realities in which they intersect’ (Hinton, 2011: 1).

Much of the criticism voiced against transitional justice focuses on the mismatch between the global and the local, analysing its applicability in post-conflict societies and its global normative assumptions, as well as the origin of the concept. To specify, first, the application of transitional justice is frequently criticised for drawing on toolbox approaches rather than on tailor-made responses to a particular post-violence context (Teitel, 2008), even though there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. In doing so, political engagement is replaced by technocratic solutions (Hinton, 2011, Nagy, 2008). For instance, instead of addressing lingering conflicts, they are regulated by courts and commissions. Using such a bureaucratic approach that heavily depends on institutions carries the risk of spurring on grassroots resistance to such initiatives (McEvoy and McGregor, 2008: 6). In countries in transition in particular, where the political situation is highly complex and volatile, such a misconception might aggravate rather than ameliorate the situation. Moreover, it impedes the search for alternative visions of justice at the local level that might not entirely correspond to the parameters of global entrepreneurs but are culturally better situated and thus potentially more effective and sustainable.

The second and closely related criticism thus refers to the norms transported by the theory and practice of transitional justice (Franzki and Orlate, 2014). A common argument is that the ultimate objective of transitional justice is not the transition merely from violence to some form of peaceful coexistence, but one to some form of liberal democracy (Arthur, 2009: 337) as inherent in liberal peace-building more generally. This is closely intertwined with the argument that the concept is deeply entrenched in liberal thought, which determines both its assumptions and its mechanisms (Dhawan, 2012; Hinton, 2011). For Shaw and Waldorf (2010: 3) this includes

a liberal vision of history as progress …, a redemptive model in which the harms of the past may be repaired in order to produce a future characterised by the non-recurrence of violence, the rule of law, and a culture of human rights.

Against this backdrop, it has been suggested that transitional justice strives to transform people into liberal subjects; into autonomous citizens instilled with freedom, equality, and liberal rights, who engage in democratic, juridical, and political practices (Hinton, 2011: 8). However, the privileging of individual over group rights, as embodied by the liberal approach, might not be suitable for non-Western cultures (Sriram, 2009: 199), pointing to the limits of the concept beyond the cultural hemisphere from which it emerged. What often is overlooked is the local perspective that takes into account the people affected by the violence and the peace built, as well as an understanding of political antagonisms that exceed mere technocratic problem-solving solutions.

Lastly, it is frequently argued that the concept of transitional justice derives from human rights initiatives and networks far away from the context of violence (Arthur, 2009). Disregarding local context and needs, think tanks, transitional justice entrepreneurs and donors set the agendas of post-violence societies and lobby strongly for some form of dealing with the past (Oomen, 2005). Frequently, the approaches promoted by external agents and norm entrepreneurs are rather legalistic in orientation (McEvoy, 2007), even though they remain highly political and selective (Humphrey, 2003), frequently without being aware of it. Tribunals, in particular, it is contended, have little relevance for the people affected by the violence (see, for instance, Uvin and Mironko, 2003). A large body of literature is thus emerging that casts doubt on the pertinence of retributive and punitive justice in some post-violence societies. Instead, it advocates a stronger turn to restorative justice that aims less at punishment of the perpetrators and more at the restoration of the social fabric of the community.

Crucial for the argument in this chapter is that this criticism has been developed in relation to the application of a global norm embedded in Western, liberal thought in post-violence societies in the global South. It marks a moment of resistance against the constitutive effect of norms. It suggests that they are not, or are only to a limited extent, adaptable to local context and culture, pointing at the frictions; the encounters of different materials in the process. This is in line with the general postcolonial assessments of power and representation in North-South relations that are scrutinising Eurocentric models. Importantly, the criticism suggests that the local continues to be important for people – in the context of transitional justice and beyond.

But is the relation as one-dimensional as it is proclaimed by the criticism, and is the local merely a product of the global (unless it resists its influence)? Is it simply a victim of global forces or does the local also have some form of agency? Answering these questions requires a closer look at the scalar markers of global and local.

Frictions between the global and the local

Assessing the criticism voiced against the global norm of transitional justice from a local perspective reveals that it perpetuates a rather static understanding of global and local. Instead of engaging with each other, the scalar references seem to be maintained as distinct. This understanding has been challenged by the work of Tsing, whose notion of friction provides a useful framework for analysing the encounter of the global and the local in transitional justice. Friction, as an analytical concept, highlights the imperfection of the connectivity between various agents and their ideas at the global and local level. Drawing attention to what happens at their intersection, it moves beyond approaches that merely explore the impact of external interventions to focus on unexpected new outcomes emerging from the process of engagement. Importantly, friction is always a creative moment for Tsing, since it leads to new concepts and ideas. She thus points to ‘awkward engagements’, that is, to the constitutive relationships that affect and transform actors and ideas situated in global, local, and other realms (2005: xi) or ‘the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnectedness across difference’ (2005: 4).

Tsing’s notion of friction has been adopted by various disciplines, including peace and conflict studies. In the context of peacebuilding, it has been suggested that it enhances the analysis by helping ‘to understand the complex interaction processes in which various local actors and international interveners meet’ (Millar et al., 2013: 139). By shifting the focus to how particular outcomes emerge – rather then what these outcomes are – Tsing’s notion of friction illuminates the processes of their materialisation. Against this backdrop, Björkdahl and Höglund (2013) take up the notion of friction in order to develop a framework for global–local interactions in peacebuilding processes. They establish six responses that may arise as an outcome of an encounter of global and local actors pursuing their respective ideas: compliance, adoption, adaptation, co-optation, resistance, and rejection (Björkdahl and Höglund, 2013: 297). In brief, compliance refers to the forced adherence or submission to global/external discourses and practices; adoption refers to the acceptance of global/external norms and practices at the local level; adaptation refers to the contextualising of global/external norms and practices to local requirement; co-optation refers to the strategic adoption of the global/external into the local as a means of averting pressure; resistance refers to the dominance of local characteristics or limited adoption of global/external norms and practices; and finally, rejection refers to the exclusion of global/external norms and practices from the local.

What seems to be at the heart of the notion of friction as a heuristic tool is the relationship between the local and the global, as well as how they are each constituted and challenged. This can be analysed through the lens of spatial theory. What does this imply in this particular context? The notion of a ‘spatial turn’ was first employed by the geographer Edward W. Soja (1989). By drawing on the work of the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre he stressed the importance of space as an analytical category for the analysis of social phenomena. For a start, taking a spatial turn denotes a move away from considering spaces such as the global and the local as ‘fixed, dead, unproblematic background, the stage or container of social processes and history’ (Soja, 2009: 19), as done by some of the transitional justice and peacebuilding literature. The necessity of taking a spatial turn derived from the fact that traditional geographical analysis had been dominated by the empirical expressions of spatial practices, supposedly producing factual knowledge about the so-called objective or real world (Soja, 2009: 20). In doing so, it had a tendency to focus almost exclusively on materialised surfaces and measurable patterns without recognising the forces that brought these surfaces into being.

The discourse of transitional justice today also treats the local and the global as empirical expressions with fixed surfaces, ignoring the forces that have brought them about. Much of current discourse and practice sets out from a binary perception of the global and local as mutually exclusive entities in which the local is frequently understood as either fenced off...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction: peacebuilding through the lens of friction
• 1 Frictional spaces: transitional justice between the global and the local
• 2 Respecting complexity: compound friction and unpredictability in peacebuilding
• 3 Frictional commemoration: local agency and cosmopolitan politics at memorial sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda
• 4 Escaping friction: practices of creating non-frictional space in Sierra Leone
• 5 Sites of friction: governance, identity and space in Mostar
• 6 The imagined agent of peace: frictions in peacebuilding through civil society strengthening
• 7 Friction over justice in post-war Sri Lanka: actors in local–global encounters
• 8 The ‘awkward’ success of peacebuilding in Cambodia: creative and incomplete, unsustainable yet resilient, progressing but stalling
• 9 Frictions in illusionstan: engagement between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ in Afghanistan’s imagi-nation-building
• 10 Connections for peace: frictions in peacebuilding encounters in Ituri, Democratic Republic of Congo
• 11 Problematising global–local dynamics in Timor-Leste
• Conclusions: peacebuilding and the significance of friction
• Index