Paper short abstract:

By focusing on the impact of devolution on peacebuilding in Kenya, this piece engages in the debate on defining “local” and multiscalar identity that goes beyond the local-international binary. Interviews with practitioners show how communal conflicts inform the future of African peacebuilding.

Paper long abstract:

After electoral violence in 2007, Kenya revised its constitution to include the most comprehensive form of decentralization in all of Africa. The effects of the political reform are manifesting in different sectors of the country. How this change has impacted the approaches and success of peacebuilding is still unclear. Through interviews with domestic and international peacebuilders who have worked in Kenyan communal conflicts, this paper sheds light on the country’s subcategories of conflicts based on key conflict drivers such as border disputes and resource scarcity and how devolution influences their resolution. These differences between conflicts and the relationships between levels of governments inform peacebuilding strategies. One strategy is “localization”, which refers to the processes of framing identities of peacebuilders and peace efforts in relation to the “local” within the given context. By studying “localization” in communal conflicts, this piece engages in the theoretical debate on defining the “local” and reveals the multiscalar nature of identity in peacebuilding and conflict that goes beyond the traditional local-international binary. The findings of this paper contribute to a broader discussion on localization in peacebuilding, provide conceptual refinement to communal conflict studies, and demonstrates how peacebuilding in Kenya can shape the future of African peacebuilding.