From Hybridity to Networked Relationality: Actors, Ideologies and the Legacies of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Abstract

This article reflects on hybrid relationality as an analytical lens for peacebuilding. It narrates the evolution of ‘the hybrid turn’ and engages with common critiques of hybridity. It notes an additional critique of hybridity's implicit normativity. This article agrees that relational approaches have much to offer hybrid peacebuilding analysis and argues they could be strengthened with complementation from a networked lens. The proposed networked relational framework is animated with examples from Sudanese peacebuilding following the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. Overall, the article builds on critiques of hybridity and offers a networked approach as a supplement to new relational frameworks.