Chapter 4 - Constructing a New Identity as a Peacekeeper

Summary

This chapter examines the critical interplay between African peacekeeping and the evolution of national and regional identities. It does so by exploring two levels of identity – regional and national. The growing prominence of regionally led African peacekeeping missions and initiatives since the 1980s has, the authors argue, fed into the establishment of regional identities and blocs across the continent, particularly in West Africa. It has also, however, provided a range of fora through which states can contest and re-negotiate their regional identity, and the authors explore the case of Tanzania in particular in this regard. The authors also highlight how peacekeeping has been incorporated into processes of post-conflict and post-liberation identity building, looking at Rwanda and South Africa, where peacekeeping missions have been understood as representations of post-genocide Rwanda or the ‘new South Africa’ and where peacekeepers have been heralded as embodiments of a new political settlement and normative positioning of the relationship between state and society.