Part I - Constructing Knowledge of the Host Country

Summary

Michel Losembe, a Congolese businessman, was shocked by the way interveners treated him and other Congolese elites. To him, foreign peacebuilders communicated condescendingly, as though they were saying, “Here is how things work in the rest of the world; don’t you realize how far you deviate from that?!” He felt that the expatriates did not listen to the ideas of the Congolese, and they regularly made their Congolese counterparts feel unqualified. Frustrated by this attitude, Michel decided to conduct an experiment. He was from a mixed background, American-born, with Belgian, Portuguese, and Congolese ancestors, and he could pass for someone of another nationality with relative ease. One day, instead of introducing himself as Congolese, he told the group that he came from Puerto Rico. The result was clear: “The attitude in the meeting” was “completely different.” The interveners listened to his ideas with respect and interest. He found he had much more credibility and influence when he passed as an outsider.

Losembe’s experience illustrates one of the many consequences of the politics of knowledge in Peaceland, where foreign experts have a lot more clout than local ones. Successful peacebuilding requires a nuanced understanding of the intervention area and of the specific dynamics of peace and conflict on the ground. Too often, though, such knowledge is absent because international interveners rely upon thematic rather than country expertise and regularly ignore insights from local stakeholders. In Part I of this book, I study the process of knowledge construction that produces this pattern, and I examine how it has both positive (usually intentional) and negative (unintentional) consequences for peacebuilding effectiveness.