The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork

489 Pages·2021·5.465 MB·English

by  Roger Mac Ginty, Roddy Brett, Birte Vogel

The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork
Roger Mac Ginty · Roddy Brett ·
Birte Vogel
Editors
The Companion
to Peace and Conflict
Fieldwork
Editors
Roger Mac Ginty Roddy Brett
School of Government School of Sociology, Politics
and International Affairs and International Studies
Durham University University of Bristol
Durham, UK Bristol, UK
Birte Vogel
Humanitarian and Conflict
Response Institute
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-46432-5 ISBN 978-3-030-46433-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021
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C
ontents
1 Introduction 1
Roger Mac Ginty, Roddy Brett, and Birte Vogel
2 How I Dealt with My Ethics Committee, and Survived 17
Jonathan Fisher
3 When Humans Become Data 35
Roxani Krystalli
4 Researching Over-Researched Societies 47
Gráinne Kelly
5 Preparing for Fieldwork Interviews 65
Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Birgit Poopuu
6 Being Indiana Jones in IR: The Pressure to Do ‘Real’
Fieldwork 85
Laura Routley and Katharine A. M. Wright
7 Interview Locations 101
Paul Jackson
8 From Risk Aversion to Risk Management 115
Sophie Roborgh
9 Researching ‘Militant Groups’ 131
James W. McAuley
v
vi CONTENTS
10 The Ethics of Ethnographic Peace and Conflict Research 147
Gearoid Millar
11 Solitary Decision-Making and Fieldwork Safety 163
Max Gallien
12 Making Contact: Interviewing Rebels in Sierra Leone 175
Kieran Mitton
13 Participatory Action Research: Challenges and Rewards
in Fifteen Field Lessons 189
Georgina McAllister
14 Conflict Ethnography Goes Online: Chatnography
of the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions 207
Ilmari Käihkö
15 Negotiating Relationships with Vulnerable Communities 223
Nick Morgan
16 Gatekeepers 237
Gyde M. Sindre
17 Working with Translators: Implications of the Translator’s
Positionality for the Research Process and Knowledge
Production 249
Kristina Tschunkert
18 Facing Violence in the Field 263
Roddy Brett
19 Interviewing Perpetrators of Genocide 279
Manolo E. Vela Castañeda
20 Interviewing Elites 295
Christine J. Wade
21 Secrecy and Silence in Fieldwork: Reflections
on Feminist Research on Violence in Latin America 305
Mo Hume
CONTENTS vii
22 Read the Room: Side-by-Side Methodology
in a Belfast Ice Hockey Arena 321
Eric Lepp
23 Traversing Fieldwork with Imperfect Language Skills 339
Simon Philpott
24 Confessions of a Local Researcher 353
Nemanja Džuverović
25 Gendered Challenges to Fieldwork in Conflict-Affected
Areas 365
Kathleen M. Jennings
26 Race, Positionality and the Researcher 381
Sarah Njeri
27 Fixers and Friends: Local and International Researchers 395
Morten Bøås
28 “Mummy I Want to Go Home”: Children
and Parenthood in the Field 407
J. M. López
29 Privilege 421
Stefanie Kappler
30 From the Field Back to Academia 433
Malgorzata Polanska
31 The Politics and Practicalities of Writing 445
Birte Vogel and Roger Mac Ginty
32 ‘Each Word is Powerful’: Writing and the Ethics
of Representation 455
Angela J. Lederach
33 Perspectives on “Giving Back”: A Conversation
Between Researcher and Refugee 471
Jessica Field and Ali Johar
Index 485
n C
otes on ontributors
Berit Bliesemann de Guevara is a Professor in International Politics at
Aberystwyth University. She has conducted fieldwork interviews on war
and peace themes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Germany, Kosovo,
Myanmar and the US. Her recent methodological interest is in the value of
drawing and textile-making as arts-based methods to accompany interviews.
Morten Bøås is Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of
International Affairs. He conducts fieldwork in Africa and the Middle
East. His most recent books include Africa’s Insurgents: Navigating an
Evolving Landscape (2017) and Doing Fieldwork in Areas of International
Intervention: A Guide to Research in Closed and Violent Contexts (2020).
Roddy Brett is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the
University of Bristol. Prior to this, Dr. Brett worked for seven years at the
University of St. Andrews, where he was Director of the Masters Programme
in Peace and Conflict Studies and Director of the Centre for Peace and
Conflict Studies. His fields of research include conflict, peace processes/
peacebuilding, genocide and human rights. During thirteen years living in
Latin America, he acted as Advisor to the UNDP and the UNHCHR and
as Advisor on Indigenous Affairs to the Norwegian Embassy. He worked
with the Centre for Human Rights Legal Action in Guatemala, as a mem-
ber of the original team that prepared the evidence against former dictator
General Ríos Montt, leading to his conviction in May 2013 for eighty years
for genocide and crimes against humanity. In 2015, he led a UN investigation
into the role of the delegations of victims in the Santos-FACRC-EP peace
process. He has published in a broad range of journals, and published five
monographs and edited five collected volumes. His most recent books are The
Origins and Dynamics of Genocide: Political Violence in Guatemala (2016),
ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
The Politics of Victimhood in Post-conflict Societies: Comparative and Analytical
Perspectives (2018) and The Path Towards Reconciliation After Colombia’s
War: Understanding the Roles of Victims and Perpetrators (2020).
Nemanja Džuverović is Associate Professor in Peace Studies at the
University of Belgrade. His research areas include welfare in post-conflict
environments, political economy of liberal peacebuilding and international
statebuilding in the Balkans. He has published a range of articles and book
chapters relating to peace and conflict studies.
Jessica Field is a Lecturer in Global Challenges at Brunel University London
and an Adjunct Associate Professor at O. P. Jindal Global University, India.
Jessica’s research focuses on disaster governance and refugee protection in
South Asia. She has recently completed two projects exploring Rohingya ref-
ugee perceptions of “self-reliance” and “resilience” in India.
Jonathan Fisher is Reader in African Politics in, and Director of, the
International Development Department of the University of Birmingham.
His research focuses on the intersections between conflict, (in)security and
authoritarianism in Africa, and he has a particular interest in Eastern Africa.
He is co-editor of the journal Civil Wars.
Max Gallien is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies
(IDS) and a political scientist specialising in the politics of smuggling and
informal economies, the political economy of development, and the modern
politics of North Africa.
Mo Hume is a senior lecturer in Politics at the University of Glasgow where
she specialises in Latin American politics, with a specific research interest in
the gendered politics of violence and conflict. She has carried out extensive
fieldwork in Latin America, particularly Central America where she also spent
several years as a development worker with a local women’s organisation. She
is currently researching struggles for socio-environmental rights along the
Atrato River in Colombia in the context of an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Paul Jackson is Professor at the University of Birmingham. He has worked
on security, governance and decentralisation for twenty five years and has car-
ried out fieldwork in countries as varied as Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Colombia,
and Nepal. He has worked with groups ranging from militaries and govern-
ment to chiefs and insurgents.
Kathleen M. Jennings is Head of section for Research and Development at
the Faculty of Social Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University, and was previ-
ously a senior researcher at the Fafo Research Foundation, Oslo. Her research
interests include United Nations peacekeeping and peacebuilding interven-
tions, gender, peacekeeping economies, and qualitative methodologies.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi
Ali Johar (Maung Thein Shwe) is Education Coordinator for the
Rohingya Human Rights Initiative in Delhi, a founder of the Rohingya
Literacy Programme, a Rohingya Youth Leader, and a “Global Youth Peace
Ambassador” recognised by the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth
Development, Government of India. Ali was born in Rakhine (formally
known as Arakan) in Myanmar.
Ilmari Käihkö is an assistant professor at the Department of Security,
Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence University, and a veteran of the
Finnish Defence Forces. His research concentrates on the cultural sociology of
contemporary war in places like Liberia and Ukraine, as well as the fieldwork
methods required by this endeavour.
Stefanie Kappler is Associate Professor in Conflict Resolution and
Peacebuilding at Durham University. She is currently working on a range of
externally funded projects that investigate the politics of memory in relation
to peacebuilding, the cultural heritage of conflict as well as the role of the arts
in peace formation processes.
Gráinne Kelly is a lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies, based at INCORE
(International Conflict Research Institute) at Ulster University. Her research
interests include reconciliation, testimony work and the intersection of the-
ory, policy and practice in peacebuilding. She has conducted qualitative
research in Cambodia, Sierra Leone and Northern Ireland.
Roxani Krystalli has spent a decade working on feminist approaches to
peace and justice, as a researcher and humanitarian practitioner. In September
2020, she will begin her appointment as a Lecturer at the University of St
Andrews, where her research and teaching will focus on feminist peace and
conflict studies.
Angela J. Lederach is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology in
the Department of Cultural and Social Studies at Creighton University in
Omaha, Nebraska. Her research examines the politics of peacebuilding,
youth, gender and masculinity, and multispecies approaches to peacebuild-
ing. Her current project advances a critical anthropology of peace through
ethnographic and participatory research in Colombia, outlining the practices
and discourses of ‘slow peace’ that social leaders employ in Montes de María.
She is the co-author of When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys Through the
Soundscape of Healing and Reconciliation.
Eric Lepp is a peace scholar whose current research explores spaces of
encounter and the construction of community which includes the ‘other’ in
conflict-affected societies. He is particularly interested in the unorthodox,
resistant, and unexpected spaces where peace is being enacted and imagined
against a backdrop of division.