Peacebuilding projects continue to fall short in reaching their full potential. In order to find more effective approaches to ending cycles of violence locally driven peacebuilding projects are become increasingly popular. Despite the growing practical interest towards this approach, very little is known about the conditions around how to ensure local peacebuilders have what they need for this to occur, and in particular for domestic women peacebuilders. Research is showing in order to build durable peace women are a vital group to meaningfully include, however, they continue to be marginalized, left out all together and or given little agency in  peacebuilding work. This thesis contributes to this understudied field by exploring how partnership structures between international peacebuilding actors (IPAs) and domestic women peacebuilders (DWPBs) can affect the level of agency a DWPB has to develop and implement projects that will address most with her local conflict and cultural needs. I conduct a case study analysis of two individual DWPBs, in order to test a theoretical argument linking more equitable partnership structure between IPAs and DWPBs with a DWPBs higher level of agency. The empirical finding give support to the hypotheses tested, as the structure of relationships appears to affect the level of agency a DWPB does have when implementing a peacebuilding project. However, the empirical analysis also points towards other factors that potentially can possibly influence a DWPB’s level of agency.

This thesis aims to investigate EU peacebuilding in Bosnia-Herzegovina, focusing on the ways in which EU actors engage with local cultural actors and vice versa. Given that, in the liberal peacebuilding tradition, civil society has been considered a key actor in the public sphere, peacebuilding actors have tended to neglect seemingly more marginal actors and their subtle ways of impacting on the peacebuilding process. However, this thesis contends that processes of interaction are not always direct and visible, but centre on discourse clusters, which I frame as imaginary ‘spaces of agency’. Through the creation of meanings within a space of agency and its translation into other imaginary spaces, actors develop the power to impact upon the peacebuilding process, often in coded ways and therefore invisible in the public sphere, as peacebuilding actors, including the EU, have created it. A typology of the modes of interaction and possible responses between spaces helps understand the complexities and nuances of peacebuilding interaction. The thesis uses this framework to analyse several exemplary spaces of agency of the EU, rooting them in institutional discourses with specific reference to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Based on this, I investigate a number of responses to those spaces on the part of local cultural actors, as well as how the latter contribute to the emergence of alternative localised spaces, where the EU’s spaces fail to connect to the everyday dimensions of peace. I suggest that this represents a way in which local actors try to claim the ownership of peacebuilding back in subtle ways. This also points to the ability of actors that have traditionally been excluded from the peacebuilding project to contextualise abstract and distant processes into what matters locally, as well as their capacity to reject and resist when the EU’s spaces remain irrelevant for local peacebuilding imaginations.

[Truncated abstract] This thesis is an analysis of a technology that is radically changing the location, process and position of manager learning, leveraging organisational learning agendas, and creating networks re-ordering institutional frameworks. The thesis examines the discourses, performances and productions associated with the Frontline Management Initiative (FMI) and provides a model of workplace-based management development. Academically, it provides new knowledge about the discourses constituting, enacting and producing manager development. Practically, it provides an understanding of the relations between workplace learning and outcomes that can inform practice. The FMI is a critical technology in terms of leveraging enterprise growth, due to its extensive national profile within the politically dominant societal structures of organisations, the critical interpreting role of frontline managers, and the innovative workplace-based, learner-centred framework. As the solitary Karpin (1995) report beacon, the FMI is positioned in highly contested terrain. Managing practice confronts the complexity of ordering knowledge work, where meaning and knowledge are more fluid and transient. Management development practice is more workplace located where knowing is more situated, distributed and relationally negotiated, but framed by politically endorsed competency-based frameworks. This study takes the unique opportunity to examine a learning technology that is being shaped by powerful mediating discourses. It examines how these multiple discourses construct FMI practice, what meanings of managing they develop and what effect these relational experiences have on subsequent managing practice.

To build sustainable peace, all levels of society need to be involved, from the top governmental authorities (state actors) to the ground civilians (non-state actors). The grassroots level is getting more and more attention and is acknowledged as a crucial part in the peace-building process, despite that the official peace process commonly target the top level. Peace agreements signed by the elite will not be implemented thoroughly in society, unless the population living the conflict will have own agency. This thesis uses South Sudan as a case study, with focus on locally employed INGO workers and their role and agency in moving towards sustainable peace. A literature review of well-known and recent research on the topic peace-building from below, along with interviews with the targeted group was used to establish if the theory can be reflected in practise in this specific context. An inclusive approach with all levels of the society seems to be the best strategy for such a divided context as South Sudan, affected by present and past grievance and with weak governmental structures. The social infrastructures have been partially replaced with (I)NGOs, providing a vast amount of basic services across the country. Due to the high prevalence of humanitarian actors and consequently a high number of national staff, they could be a part of the bottom-up approach. Though there is a consensus of an inclusive bottom-up approach in peace-building, the specific role of locally employed (I)NGO worker is not very well examined in the literature. National staff has clear benefits due to their role as (I)NGO workers such as respect and exposure in combination with their local expertise and network. This can contribute to a broader understanding of the situation - that wisdom should not be wasted and can contribute to them having possibility of having a voice and being a connector in the society. There is however not a clear result if this differs from the influence of other civilians and if it translates directly as a benefit in peace–building. More research is needed to determine the real agency of this group.