An emerging body of literature has examined how the composition of peacekeeping missions influences peacekeeping effectiveness, but this research has thus far relied on country-level analyses, making it difficult to confidently establish causality. This paper provides the first subnational inquiry into how cultural distance between peacekeepers and local populations influences peacekeeping effectiveness in a sample of recent peacekeeping missions in sub-Saharan Africa. After addressing selection bias arising from where/when different peacekeepers are deployed with a two-way country-year and grid cell fixed effects model, my results diverge significantly from the existing findings: culturally distant peacekeepers are more effective at protecting civilians than more culturally proximate peacekeepers. Through an analysis of deployment patterns, I show that any remaining selection bias is likely to bias against these results, as more culturally distant peacekeepers appear to be systematically sent to more conflict prone areas. I argue that these effects arise because culturally proximate peacekeepers are more likely to have their identities associated with those of certain subgroups of the population, making it harder to gain trust and gather information from the broad population in a context of identity conflict. I also provide suggestive empirical support for this causal mechanism.