The Invisibility Cloak: How ‘Internationals’ Emotions Affect Their Listening in Peacebuilding Partnerships

Sammanfattning

Why are ‘international’ peacebuilding actors so bad at listening to their ‘local’
partners, even when they want to and know they should? Practitioners, policy
makers and researchers all agree that effective peacebuilding requires
internationals to stop imposing general solutions and to instead support local
ownership, that is, to listen to locals. Still, research shows that local actors rarely
feel heard by their international partners. What is the reason for this “listening
gap”? Challenging conventional wisdom, my dissertation finds that
internationals’ everyday emotions matter. This is because emotions can keep
us within current norms and hinder receptive listening, where we are open to
learning and change. For example, daily stress stops internationals from hearing
input outside of donor logics, while pride leads them to celebrate small victories
within colonial development narratives. Such shared emotions keep
internationals themselves “invisible.” That is, their behavior or capacity is kept
off the partnership agenda, as if covered by an “Invisibility Cloak” which
provides comfort to the price of muffled hearing. Therefore, to listen more
receptively and shift power onto local actors, internationals must dare to step
out as part of the partnership, to practice failing the present game and dealing
with the feelings that arise.