Book Description

The concept of hybridity highlights complex processes of interaction and transformation between different institutional and social forms, and normative systems. It has been used in numerous ways to generate important analytical and methodological insights into peacebuilding and development. Its most recent application in the social sciences has also attracted powerful critiques that have highlighted its limitations and challenged its continuing usage. This book examines whether the value of hybridity as a concept can continue to be harnessed, and how its shortcomings might be mitigated or overcome. It does so in an interdisciplinary way, as hybridity has been used as a benchmark across multiple disciplines and areas of practical engagement over the past decade – including peacebuilding, state-building, justice reform, security, development studies, anthropology, and economics. This book encourages a dialogue about the uses and critiques of hybridity from a variety of perspectives and vantage points, including deeply ethnographic works, high-level theory, and applied policy work. The authors conclude that there is continued value in the concept of hybridity, but argue that this value can only be realised if the concept is engaged with in a reflexive and critical way. This book was originally published as a special issue of the online journal Third World Thematics.