Separation and Positive Accommodation: Police Reform in Sierra Leone

This paper addresses an important critique of hybridity as it has been applied in peace and security studies. On the one hand, it has assumed separation and otherness, because of its point of departure in understanding what occurs in the meeting between international and national (or local) actors in peacebuilding processes. At the same time, there is a danger of overemphasising positive accommodation, while not detailing what processes of hybridisation entail in practice. By exploring police reform in Sierra Leone, the paper shows the inherent tension that characterises hybridisation, and how positive accommodation as well as separation occurs simultaneously.