The limits of a part-time political ethnographer

In this ethnographic vignette the researcher reflects upon his experiences exploring ‘new settlement’ communities on the margins of Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan. It centres on two moments of self-organization in one settlement, which took place without the knowledge or involvement of the leadership, and which were interpreted by the fieldworker as examples of the role of uncertainty, self-organization and nonviolence in successful protest. Consideration of the period of research enables self-reflections on the risks and limits of the fieldwork, and the privileges and partialities of the part-time political ethnographer himself.

Ambivalent reflections on violence and peacebuilding: Activist research in Croatia and the wider post-Yugoslav space1

The chapter explores theoretical, political and ethical challenges inherent in activist research in conflict and post-conflict environments, focusing on Croatia and the wider post-Yugoslav space. Framed in terms of ‘ambivalence’, ‘positionality’ and ‘reflexivity’, the chapter revisits themes which were especially important in the wars of the Yugoslav succession: the ‘projectisation’ of NGOs; the relationship between ‘the real’ and ‘the virtual’; the role of external actors within a ‘new humanitarianism’; the over-emphasis on medicalised understanding of ‘trauma’; and the limits and possibilities of anti-nationalist movements in times of nationalist mobilisation. The chapter emphasises the importance of multi-voiced ethnography, a conscious post-colonial positioning and a stance of deep humility as preconditions for activist research to open up new arenas of possibility, struggle and change.

Qualitative research in the shadow of violent conflict

The chapter examines the physical, psychological, and emotional challenges faced by researcher and research participant in qualitative field research into the underlying drivers of violent communal conflict, as well as inhibitors to successful resolution. The reflections in this chapter are drawn from the author’s qualitative field research experiences in Somalia, Yemen, Darfur Sudan, Niger, Colombia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The utility of this chapter is a deeper appreciation of the importance of qualitative field research in studies involving violent communal conflict, and an understanding of how transference and countertransference work to degrade data collection and analysis.

Writing the wrongs: Keeping diaries and reflective practice

This chapter emphasises the role diaries assume in being a useful repository for the practice of critical reflexive thinking; providing an important space for those engaged in conflict based field research to manage expectation, deal with emotion and highlight experience. Based on research conducted in the West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories, the chapter reveals how meticulously maintained research diaries provided the emotional space needed to continuously evaluate the impact that such research was having upon personal wellbeing as well as the direction of the research as a whole. In the absence of commonly availed of familiar support networks, the research diary, in a conflict setting acts as a cathartic tool in providing the mental and emotional space to document fears and anxieties impacting upon the individual researcher.

Packing for Kabul

Using a visit to Kabul as its entry point, the vignette explores feelings of apprehension and fear linked to this visit, but also the privileges that come with being a male western researcher.

Intervention, autonomy and power in polarised societies

The chapter builds on fieldwork conducted in rural Mozambique on community mobilisation against insurgent violence during the country’s civil war (1976-1992) to reflect upon some of the unintended consequences of fieldwork in polarised societies. It focuses on the ways in which the autonomy of both the researcher and the researched may be affected during the research process. In analysing the simultaneous empowerment and disempowerment of research participants, the chapter discusses the challenges raised around issues of power and neutrality during fieldwork and suggests that conflict research needs to be understood as a form of intervention in local affairs.

Empathy as a critical methodological tool in peace research

This chapter discusses the politics and practice of empathy in peace research. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Armenia and Azerbaijan, it shows how empathetic research relations impacted the methodological design for a study of women's nongovernmental organisations and peacebuilding. Although developing friendships with some participants led to important insights and broadened the scope of the research, there were ethical risks associated with power relations and emotionally and politically sensitive information. Drawing on feminist methodologies, the chapter argues for reflexivity as a way of navigating relationships responsibly and making sense of the researcher's changing subjective position. On leaving the field, reflexivity is required in order to analyse and represent information ethically, and to understand the implications of power and empathy in the politics of knowledge production.

Fields of insecurity: Responding to flows of information

This chapter focuses on the impact of flows of information through information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the decision-making processes for researchers working in instable, volatile regions. Drawing on the authors’ experiences in Nigeria and Congo-Brazzaville, the paper argues that while ICTs have become important tools for research, they also create new dilemmas for the researcher. These dilemmas emerge from the interface between us as researchers, and constant flows of information about insecurity in our fields that reach us via social media. Paradoxically, in an information rich world, a lack of information can also create such dilemmas. Flows of information – or the lack thereof – are not only data, but also affect us on an emotional level. As such new subjective fields of insecurity emerge for the researcher that produce emotional responses such as anger or disorientation, and that in turn inform decision-making processes, such as an inclination for deeper engagement, or to disengage.

Bodies of cyberwar: Violence and knowledge beyond corporeality

This chapter explores how violence unfolds in the context of cyberwar. It does so through a theoretical analysis of understanding the body that transcends corporeality. It reflects on the implications this entails for the production of knowledge on this phenomenon. This chapter suggests rethinking cyberwar in view of violence as an experience that discloses through the interplay between embodied proximity and distance, rather than corporeality. Drawing on the author’s research experience on Palestinian cyberwar, an understanding of violence is reconciled with its implications for the study of war in cyberspace, at often times considered as a disembodied, and thus non-violent, warscape.

Thinking about race and gender in conflict research

This vignette explore the ways in which race and gender can influence the research process, the experience of the researcher, and the perceptions of the research participants and communities through short narratives on fieldwork conducted in Afghanistan and Burundi. It ends with a few reflections on the need for more discussion within academic circles about intersectionality and research praxis.