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With this quote, Castells shows us the extent to which representations are a site of power and agency in people's everyday lives. Indeed, "representation" as a way of creating and (re)framing one's own or another person's identity is an important factor for shaping social relations. Against this background, it can be considered a powerful tool for peacebuilding, often aiming at the reconfiguration of societies – and hence social identities – as a basic instrument of control over "the everyday". Indeed, governing post-conflict societies, including the lives of individuals, to "civilize" them is often a pronounced goal of peacebuilding and state-building missions.² The interaction of local representations with those created by the international peacebuilding community then forms a space of hybridity, in which representations of what constitutes "the local" constitute and respond to each other. In that sense, the ways in which Bosnian society represents "the local" do not stand in isolation, but develop forms of compliance, co-option or resistance vis-à-vis the representations promoted by the international community.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230354234_14

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