“…The aforementioned hybridity of the Cambodian political system is thus also characterised by disjuncture. Apparently to be ‘expected in virtually any peacebuilding process pursuing liberal peace’ (Öjendal and Ou , 369), friction is identifiable between the respective rationalities of the global human rights regime and that of Cambodian government lawmakers. Friction, as I have written elsewhere, is also manifestbetween what is hallowed as a national culture and tradition of harmonious households, set against a law which has arisen conversely from the disharmonious realities that many women face.…”
Section: Ideological Logics Of Local Reconciliation In Cambodiamentioning
This paper addresses the dearth of writing in geography on domestic violence and its misplaced absenteeism in dialogues on geographies of war and peace. It challenges a preoccupation with (inter)-national landscapes of war and militarism through its focus on the (im)possibilities of (liberal) peace within the home. The paper attends to the everyday politics of efforts to reduce spousal violence via local reconciliation -a customary practice of conflict resolution that has attracted criticism from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. On the basis of 120 interviews and a quantitative household survey in two provinces of Cambodia (2012Cambodia ( -2014, the paper argues that political economy considerations are crucial to understanding the path and outcome of various domestic violence interventions. By analysing the situated beliefs and experiences of domestic violence victims, legal professionals, NGO workers, police officers and other authority leaders, it also stresses the importance of questioning what peace equates to for different stakeholders. The research shows a strong moralistic commitment to 'harmony' and the unyielding continuity of the marital unit by national and local government machinery intent on securing its own intimate security through local reconciliation. For many women who suffer abuse, and for legal professionals in particular, local reconciliation represents, by contrast, an ambiguous departure from intimate war to peace that can lead to the detriment rather than betterment of victims' lives. Its continued use contravenes the country's 2005 domestic violence law in 'severe' cases and belies the promise of justice. Exposing and responding to the cultural ideals and norms promulgated, as well as the political and material realities operative, geographers have a greater role and responsibility to play in producing research that examines the multi-scalar connections between these dynamics and the vested interests of their various interlocutors who have the potential to render peace putative.
“…The aforementioned hybridity of the Cambodian political system is thus also characterised by disjuncture. Apparently to be ‘expected in virtually any peacebuilding process pursuing liberal peace’ (Öjendal and Ou , 369), friction is identifiable between the respective rationalities of the global human rights regime and that of Cambodian government lawmakers. Friction, as I have written elsewhere, is also manifestbetween what is hallowed as a national culture and tradition of harmonious households, set against a law which has arisen conversely from the disharmonious realities that many women face.…”
Section: Ideological Logics Of Local Reconciliation In Cambodiamentioning
This paper addresses the dearth of writing in geography on domestic violence and its misplaced absenteeism in dialogues on geographies of war and peace. It challenges a preoccupation with (inter)-national landscapes of war and militarism through its focus on the (im)possibilities of (liberal) peace within the home. The paper attends to the everyday politics of efforts to reduce spousal violence via local reconciliation -a customary practice of conflict resolution that has attracted criticism from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. On the basis of 120 interviews and a quantitative household survey in two provinces of Cambodia (2012Cambodia ( -2014, the paper argues that political economy considerations are crucial to understanding the path and outcome of various domestic violence interventions. By analysing the situated beliefs and experiences of domestic violence victims, legal professionals, NGO workers, police officers and other authority leaders, it also stresses the importance of questioning what peace equates to for different stakeholders. The research shows a strong moralistic commitment to 'harmony' and the unyielding continuity of the marital unit by national and local government machinery intent on securing its own intimate security through local reconciliation. For many women who suffer abuse, and for legal professionals in particular, local reconciliation represents, by contrast, an ambiguous departure from intimate war to peace that can lead to the detriment rather than betterment of victims' lives. Its continued use contravenes the country's 2005 domestic violence law in 'severe' cases and belies the promise of justice. Exposing and responding to the cultural ideals and norms promulgated, as well as the political and material realities operative, geographers have a greater role and responsibility to play in producing research that examines the multi-scalar connections between these dynamics and the vested interests of their various interlocutors who have the potential to render peace putative.
“…The deep-seated Cambodian political elite, argue Öjendal and Ou (2013, 367), 'impeded the smooth transition to full liberal democracy' and tried to create new arrangements for more 'indigenous powerinduced, negotiation-based, consensus politics' (374). This resistance, as found by Öjendal and Ou (2013), was not motivated by a desire to prolong conflict but rather by an ideological rejection of liberalism. Ideological opposition has also been enacted by locals against the state.…”
Section: Motivations Behind Local Resistancementioning
This article discusses what motivates diasporas to resist homeland peacebuilding using the case of the UK-based Sudanese diaspora. It identifies the need to analyse diasporic resistance against a framework of hybrid peacebuilding and local resistance. In hybrid frameworks, resistance is not necessarily motivated by 'anti-peace' intentions but can be part of attempts to secure peace. This investigation examines the two key peacebuilding strategies in Sudan during 2014; the National Dialogue and internationally-led civil society building, both of which were subject to considerable resistance at the local level in Sudan. Applying an analytical framework of hybridity and using empirical material from interviews with UK-based Sudanese activists, the article asks why these processes were resisted by the diaspora and to what extent these motivations build on, resonate with, or subvert local resistance(s). The findings show that motivations behind diasporic resistance to homeland peacebuilding matches with local resistance in relation to the National Dialogue. However, in relation to international peacebuilding, the diasporic resistance diverged from the local in several key ways. Through contextualising diasporic resistance against hybrid peace and local resistance, the paper contributes to a hybrid understanding of diasporic resistance during homeland peacebuilding.
“…In many post-conflict societies this turns troublesome when national political elites remain divided and confrontational, in spite of a formal peace agreement. Such polarised national political dynamics frequently trickle down into local politics, and in those cases the space for localised peace initiatives appears severely restricted (Öjendal & Ou 2013). This problem is all the more pressing in societies which have a history of top-down political leadership, including (former) communist regimes, neopatrimonial systems, and other strongly hierarchical political structures (Mannergren-Selimovic 2010).…”
The local turn debate sometimes falls into the trap of romanticising the local, while vilifying international involvement in peacebuilding. Although this post-colonially informed argument makes immediate theoretical sense, there is a dearth of empirically driven comparative research which explores whether, and if so how, an international presence actually influences local peacebuilding efforts. In order to address this research gap, the present article sets out to study the execution of local peacebuilding programmes in two relatively similar cases where one (Nepal) has enjoyed little international peacebuilding presence, while the other (Cambodia) has seen a massive influx of international actors and funding in its peacebuilding endeavour. Our empirical material indicates that international support for the local peacebuilding process in Cambodia has bolstered it, while the locally owned process in Nepal has been far from successful in forging the conditions for sustainable peace. To fathom why these particular outcomes have occurred, however, the full answers are unlikely to be found by merely scrutinising whether the peacebuilding processes have been primarily internationally or locally driven. Instead, we suggest that peacebuilding outcomes are better understood by studying situated practices.
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