Making local knowledge: Ethnographic authority in the German intervention in Afghanistan

This article analyzes the production of local knowledge in peacebuilding. The local turn has criticized liberal peacebuilding’s exclusion of local knowledge. Still, aside from the binary of inclusion/exclusion of the local in knowledge production, we need more nuanced analyses of how the local is understood, accessed, and produced as local knowledge. I draw on Sending’s work on ethnographic sagacity and the anthropology of colonialism to show that the ability to deploy local knowledge confers authority and that this carries an essentialist understanding of local knowledge. Empirically, I rely on 18 interviews with German experts on Afghanistan to analyze how and what was produced as local knowledge in peacebuilding in Afghanistan. The analysis shows that due to the structural pressures created by ethnographic sagacity, an essentialist understanding of local knowledge may continue to exist even if knowledge producers do not support it. Essentialism arises from the expectations for knowledge producers to demonstrate authenticity, maintain a strategic distance, and adhere to simplified ethics. The findings highlight the significance of relational modes of thinking about local knowledge production in peacebuilding.