| ID | 170370 |
| Title Proper | Production of Legitimacy |
| Other Title Information | Race and Gender in Peacebuilding Praxis |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Smith, Sarah |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Peace operations have increasingly sought to demonstrate their legitimacy in the face of critiques that characterize them as top-down impositions with limited impact and which entail a host of unintended consequences. Each book under review explores in depth the institutional consignment and attribution of legitimacy to certain spaces, actors, and bodies, which can serve to confirm and embed hierarchical relations of power. Von Billerbeck delineates the ambivalence with which “local ownership” is deployed in peace operations, closing down knowledge exchange rather than presenting opportunity. Shepherd builds on similar insights and argues that gendered logics and power inform the conceptualization and deployment of “local” and “civil society” and thus the (relative) lack of legitimacy afforded to these spaces. This essay seeks to develop from these insights further, drawing especially on postcolonial and critical race theory to demonstrate how race and racism structure the production and use of such categories, in both peace operation practice and international relations more broadly. |
| `In' analytical Note | International Studies Review Vol. 21, No.4; Dec 2019: p.705–715 |
| Journal Source | International Studies Review Vol: 21 No 4 |
| Key Words | Race ; Peacebuilding ; Legitimacy |