“The Struggle for Power in Southern Lebanon: Israel, Hizbullah, and the UN Peacekeeping Forces”

My work is a critique of international peacekeeping. Following the Cold War peacekeeping was increasingly militarized. The budget of United Nations peacekeeping missions has increased from a total of US$3.6 billion in the year 1994 to US$8.27 billion in the year 2016. Furthermore, peacekeeping practices are increasingly merged with more comprehensive state building and civilian activities, such as peace negotiation and dispute resolution, community development, and providing humanitarian assistance, and aid in post conflict zones. All of these practices are implemented with the goal of winning the trust of the local population, in order to facilitate the military goals of the mission. Linking multinational aid with a multinational army is a new form of external domination highly reminiscent of colonialism. Despite using military force, the attempt is to rely on soft power and implementing peacekeeping. Along the lines of similar studies in the field of anthropology, such as the anthropology of development, law, and human rights, my research views the most recent changes to the United Nations peacekeeping in a neocolonial context.