ABSTRACT
This chapter weaves together local leadership and global contexts in peacemaking processes. The chapter emphasizes that in peacemaking practice, culture and context matter a great deal – both local and global contexts, and the two in relation to each other. It presents some ways that locals lead within peacemaking processes that are embedded in global dynamics, and compares and contrasts the strengths and constraints of locals and internationals involved in the process by examining several locally-led initiatives. Experience from multiple contexts recommends that peacemakers build constructive partnerships and shared leadership between insiders and outsiders – between locals and internationals – to design and implement multifaceted peacemaking processes. This approach is consistent with the idea of a “network society,” in which we are all implicated and connected, and with the nested model of conflict. In all of the cases described here, peacemaking has persevered, and it has adapted to the shifting boundaries of the possible.
