Experiences in Researching Conflict and Violence

Althea-Maria Rivas is a Lecturer in the Department of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. She is also a Research Associate at the Harriet Tubman Institute at York University. Her research interests are race and global politics, gender (in)security and development, humanitarian intervention and post-conflict reconstruction, migration, feminist and postcolonial theory and pedagogy. Brendan Ciarán Browne is an Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution and Research Fellow at the Trinity College Dublin Centre for Post-Conflict Justice. His research interests centre on conflict transformation in Northern Ireland and Palestine where he has conducted extensive fieldwork with political representatives, youth and community workers, NGOs and former combatants.

This collection explores the roles of emotion, violence, uncertainty, identity and positionality within the process of doing research in and on conflict zones, as well as the complexity of methodological choices.
It highlights the researchers' own subjectivity and presents a nuanced view of conflict research that goes beyond the messiness inherent in the process of research in and on violence and the potential for violence of research itself. It addresses the uncomfortable spaces of conflict research and the need for reflection on these issues.

Foreword ~ Robin Luckham
Introduction ~ Althea-Maria Rivas and Brendan Browne
Section I: Violence;
On conducting unleashing interviews where control means life or death ~ Rose Løvgren;
Qualitative Research in the Shadow of Violent Conflict ~ Patrick James Christian;
Vignette 1 - The Play I could not Write ~ Laurel Borisenko
Section II: Uncertainty;
Ambivalent Reflections on Violence and Peace-Building Activist Research in the Post-Yugoslav Space ~ Paul Stubbs;
Intervention, Autonomy and Power in Polarised Societies ~ Corinna Jentzsch;
Vignette 2 - Packing for Kabul ~ Henri Myrttinen;
Section III: Identity and Power;
Formidable Fieldwork: Experiences of a Lesbian Researcher in Post-Conflict Northern Ireland ~ Sandra McEvoy;
Insider-Outsider Reflections on Terrorism Research in the Coastal region of Kenya ~ Fathima Azmiya Badurdeen;
Vignette 3 - Thinking about race and gender in conflict research ~ Althea-Maria Rivas;
Bodies of Cyberwar: Violence and Knowledge Beyond Corporeality ~ Fabio Cristiano;
Fields of Insecurity: Responding to flows of Information ~ Meike de Goede and Inge Ligtvoet;
Vignette 4 - Visual ethnographic encounters and Silence in post-conflict Banda Aceh ~ Marijaana Jauhola;
Section V: Methods;
Writing the wrongs: Keeping diaries and reflective practice ~ Brendan Ciarán Browne;
Abetting Atrocities? Reporting the Perspectives of Perpetrators in Research on Violence ~ Michael Broache;
Empathy as a critical methodological tool for peace research ~ Sinéad Walsh;
Vignette 5 - Land Grabbers in Kyrgyzstan ~ John Heathershaw.