International peacebuilding efforts in Iraq have been widely criticised by practitioners and academics. Without neglecting these critiques, I elaborate how external intervention has also created spaces for Iraqi women to exercise different forms of agency. Critical approaches in peace and conflict studies often limit so-called 'local' agency to resisting liberal agendas, assuming persistent binaries between local and international spaces. I argue here that upholding those binaries implicitly fosters an absolute understanding of space that fails to meet realities on the ground. This article seeks to outline a concept of gendered agency that integrates a relational conceptualisation of space into the hitherto applied understandings of agency. Drawing on empirical evidence from Iraq, it elaborates how a relational theory of space contributes to grasping hybrid realities and notions of agency on the ground. Beyond analysing spaces of agency for women in (post-)conflict Iraq, the article discusses the value of incorporating a relational understanding of space into critical peacebuilding studies.

Kurzfassung. External intervention in Iraq has been widely criticised by practitioners and academics: The armed invasion of the US and its allies in 2003 aimed at toppling the Baath Regime and transforming Iraq into a democratic country. While it succeeded in ending the Baath regime, Iraq is far from doing well concerning security, economy and political progress. This situation is often represented as at least partly due to the failure of the US to integrate local perspectives and to pay attention to local needs. Against that backdrop the paper analyses how local actors -in my case non-governmental women's organisations -perceive and interact with international actors and knowledge frameworks. My empirical data show that the assessment of external engagement from a local perspective is far more ambivalent than a binary reading of local vs. external/global as persistent in peace and conflict studies suggests. I break with this binary reading by introducing three concepts to this debaterelations, heterogeneity and assessment of external actors. Thus, I aim to draw a more nuanced picture of the role of external expertises for the Iraqi society as it is perceived by women activists.

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"Seit der Invasion der USA ist der Irak immer wieder von gewaltsamen Konflikten erschüttert worden. Feministische Autorinnen haben eindrücklich auf die schwierige Situation von Frauen in der irakischen Transformationsgesellschaft hingewiesen. Trotzdem sind Frauen zivilgesellschaftlich aktiv und setzten sich für gesellschaftlichen Wandel ein. Aus der Perspektive irakischer Informantinnen ist die schwierige Situation von Frauen im Irak eng mit problematischen Entwicklungen auf gesamtgesellschaftlicher Ebene verbunden. Strategien zur Veränderung ihrer Situation, auch im Hinblick auf Geschlechterverhältnisse, sind daher in breitere Konzepte von Wandel eingebettet. Daten aus eigener Feldforschung im Irak zeigen, dass Ideen von Wandel stark durch die soziale Positionierung von Frauen (insbesondere Geschlecht, Nationalität und Schicht) geprägt sind. In die Analyse der qualitativen Studie wird daher ein intersektionaler Ansatz nach Floya Anthias integriert." (Autorenreferat)"Since the US invasion in 2003, Iraq has faced multiple outbreaks of violent conflicts. In that context, feminist authors have stressed the extremely difficult situation of women in an Iraqi society that is undergoing transformation. Despite the difficulties that women are facing, they are actively engaging in change and the transformation of gender relations through NGO activism. As women feel that their situation is closely connected to issues that affect Iraqi society as a whole, strategies for changing gender relations are therefore embedded within broader concepts of social change. An empirical analysis of my own field research conducted in Iraq reveals that ideas about change are strongly influenced by the social positionality of women (in particular gender, nationality and class). Therefore, an intersectional approach (based on Floya Anthias) is incorporated into the qualitative analysis." (author's abstract