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Revisiting the Local Turn in Peacebuilding

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A Requiem for Peacebuilding?

Part of the book series: Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies ((RCS))

Abstract

Since the 2000s, the ‘local turn’ has thoroughly transformed both the study and the practice of peacebuilding. This shift towards localism is either associated with critical peacebuilding scholarship which calls into question liberal peacebuilding or with peacebuilding policy discourse which has grown attached to all things local in recent years. In this chapter, Filip Ejdus casts his net wider to capture ideological and disciplinary origins of the ‘local turn’ but also to shed light on the diversity within the ‘local turn’ as well as the key challenges ahead of it. He first traces how the ‘local turn’ emerged in the field of international development and then traveled to the field of international peace and security. In the second section, he distinguishes mainstream appropriations of the ‘local turn’ from the critical approaches and outlines the key criticisms leveled against both. In the conclusion, Ejdus discusses some promising avenues for future research that could help move this intellectually rich and politically progressive agenda forward, but also warns about dangers on the horizon, especially those associated with the re-emergence of authoritarian politics. What is the purpose, he asks, of the ‘local turn’ in a world that is now increasingly turning illiberal thanks to the rise of authoritarian powers and liberal democracies’ backsliding into populism?

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Filip Ejdus

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  1. Filip Ejdus
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Correspondence to Filip Ejdus .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium

    Jorg Kustermans

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium

    Tom Sauer

  3. University Centre Saint-Ignatius Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium

    Barbara Segaert

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Ejdus, F. (2021). Revisiting the Local Turn in Peacebuilding. In: Kustermans, J., Sauer, T., Segaert, B. (eds) A Requiem for Peacebuilding? . Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56477-3_3

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