Pioneers of Peace, Implementers of Humanitarianism: Learning from the Ambivalence of Peacebuilders
Publisher: Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding
Author(s): Lise Philipsen
Date: 2020
Topics: Humanitarian Assistance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Programming
Countries: Sierra Leone
This article nuances the popular explanation that peace interventions fail because of a culture of peacebuilders unwilling to engage with the local. As a foundational part of their jobs, peacebuilders do engage with locals as they struggle daily to implement and make sense of peacebuilding policies in relation to the context they are placed within. If taken seriously, they provide a knowledge of peacebuilding that has so far been disregarded despite the recent turn to practice. We can use these ways of relating to the local to better understand what peacebuilding entails as an encounter between us and them.