Peaceland
Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention

This book suggests a new explanation for why international peace interventions often fail to reach their full potential.

Séverine Autesserre (Author)

9781107052109, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 May 2014

360 pages, 1 map 3 tables
23.1 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.59 kg

'Severine Autesserre's superb ethnographic study of international peace interventions adopts this complementarity approach to practices. Autesserre underscores the importance of the 'nuts and bolts of peacebuilding: the banal, everyday activities that actually make up the bulk of the work'. She demonstrates convincingly that everyday practices and mundane elements produce and reproduce the strategies and policies of peacebuilding, thereby explaining 'the existence and continued use of ways of working that interveners view as inefficient, ineffective, or even counterproductive'.' The Journal of Global Security Studies

This book suggests a new explanation for why international peace interventions often fail to reach their full potential. Based on several years of ethnographic research in conflict zones around the world, it demonstrates that everyday elements - such as the expatriates' social habits and usual approaches to understanding their areas of operation - strongly influence peacebuilding effectiveness. Individuals from all over the world and all walks of life share numerous practices, habits, and narratives when they serve as interveners in conflict zones. These common attitudes and actions enable foreign peacebuilders to function in the field, but they also result in unintended consequences that thwart international efforts. Certain expatriates follow alternative modes of thinking and acting, often with notable results, but they remain in the minority. Through an in-depth analysis of the interveners' everyday life and work, this book proposes innovative ways to better help host populations build a sustainable peace.

Introduction
1. Studying the everyday
Part I. Constructing Knowledge of the Host Country: 2. The politics of knowledge
3. Local reactions
4. Fumbling in the dark
Part II. Constructing and Maintaining Boundaries: 5. The interveners' circle
6. A structure of inequality
7. Daily work routines
Conclusion: transforming Peaceland
Appendix: an ethnographic approach.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP], Peace studies & conflict resolution [GTJ]