The interest for international development partnerships has increased within the discipline of cultural anthropology hand in hand with growing globalisation. Through the study of how actors that have engaged in a Ugandan-Swedish Municipal Partnership experience, express and utilise cultural difference, this thesis aims to make a contribution to this research by examine activities that took place in a specific context of cultural intersection. In addition, it aspires to link these experiences in the everyday life to general socio-political discourses. The material that the thesis builds upon was gathered during a total of four months of fieldwork in Manafwa district, Uganda, and the municipality of Åmål, Sweden. The main informants that were consulted during the fieldwork were civil servants, politicians and actors that in other ways had engaged in the partnership or in the several side-projects that were linked to it. In the analysis of their narratives, as well as of observations collected in the two field sites and of official documents that concerns the partnership, inspiration was drawn from previous research in the discipline of applied development anthropology as well as the institutionalised anthropology of development. Theories of intercultural interaction and the work of hegemonies have been used in order to examine development through the study object of cultural difference. The thesis has its starting point in two issues that were high on the agenda during my stay in Manafwa district; the 2014 Anti-homosexuality Act and corruption within the partnership. Through the study of the way that the engaged actors' experiences are used in order to create coherence in relation to these issues, the aim is to reach an understanding of how their world views are simultaneously shaped by and reshaping intercultural encounters. The ways in which claims of universal truths are used in order to install feelings of belonging and to motivate certain actions will be presented. Furthermore, the thesis will show how hegemonies in many ways are used in order to maintain hierarchies within development partnerships that in their official outlines claim that they intend to be equal.

In the light of the urgence of cooperation in the world, for handling global issues, this study offers a discussion on bilateral cooperation, more specifically on municipal partnerships. While previous research has examined some specific cases on possibilities and challengeswith this kind of cooperation, the view of proven efficiency in relation to the symbolic value has fallen short. The organization Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy offers a Network for Human Rights and aims to promote the exchange of knowledge and experiences between local authorities. This study, which is based on ten in-depth qualitative interviews, ought to explore what challenges and learnings can be found in ongoing municipal partnerships, in this Network. The study further aims to explore how those findings relate to a North and South perspective and the municipalities’ values and goals, by collecting experiences from South Africa, Zambia, Botswana and Sweden. Through a thematic analysis process of the empirical data and the use of a theoretical framework in the field of organizational learning, developed by Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schön, this study has been able to identify several findings. Challenges involve implementation, cultural obstacles and lack of resources, which prove to be divergent between North and South. Values and goals of the partnerships are hence hard to perform in practice. The outcomes circle practical activities, however, the most evident outcome is to learn from one another, which puts the learning experiences in focus of the study.