ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the re-conceptualisation of peace building by focusing on the emergence of the local turn. It outlines the fundamental claims of the scholarship advocating for a substantial shift in the way in which peace building is theoretically framed. The chapter explains the nature of the shift from top down to bottom up and to argue that this shift reflects the emergence of a form of bio power grounded in the acknowledgement of the inability to govern through imposing coercive solutions such as state building. In the early 2000s, the controversial decisions to initiate military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq were pitted against the backdrop of over a decade of less than fruitful foreign engagements with failing, failed, post-war and conflict territories. Foucault's analysis of power and the physical manifestations of relations of power have been used in relation to the post-conflict territory as a site where disciplinary power can be evidenced, as in relation to interventionism.
