Who Rebuilds? Local Roles in Rebuilding Shattered Societies
The focus in this chapter is on local roles and local-international partnerships in recovery from disaster in shattered societies. The chapter does not discount the roles that external actors can usefully play but rather, as Susan Allen writes in Chapter Eleven, to highlight the opportunities for local actors to intervene in their own societies. In addressing this question, Allen considers the case study of rebuilding Georgian–South Ossetian relationships so as to consider who in practice rebuilds shattered societies, how this rebuilding unfolds as an ongoing process, and how the skills and abilities that come to the foreground in the aftermath of traumatic evolve. In turn, the chapter examines the various actions that are part of rebuilding and the different ways people contribute to such a process. Third, considered are the varied actors, the partnerships, and finally the roles of individuals involved in rebuilding. Finally, even while acknowledging partnerships, the chapter also considers individual agency and the ways that a recognised or emergent leader can exercise what John Paul Lederach (2005) refers to as the ‘moral imagination’.