Where does hybridity originate? Interfacing between local and international actors in Sri Lankan postconflict peacebuilding

Abstract

ABSTRACT The peace and conflict literature has paid much attention to the hybridity produced by international peacebuilders and local actors. Although the modalities of hybridity have been discussed, few studies related to hybridity have observed the presence of locally led hybrid peacebuilding. To fill this gap in the literature, this paper addresses an emerging form of hybridization that is distinct from the internationally led type by examining the case of Sri Lanka. The paper takes a new direction by investigating the peace practices of local agents, referred to as grama niladharis (GNs), which has caused changes in the behavior of international actors in liberal peacebuilding in Sri Lanka. An anthropological method is applied with in-depth interviews and participatory observation. The paper identifies a critical direction for the discourse by documenting a form of locally led hybridization in which the GN system, with ownership by the local government, incorporates certain liberal peacebuilding concepts. Through this hybridization, local systems appear to reinterpret the liberal peace practices introduced by international peacebuilders in a modified form of peacebuilding and maintain autonomous local operations.