Method, Teacher, Decision-Maker: Using Qualitative Research to Build a Strong Evidence Base for Atrocity Prevention in Post-Conflict Societies

Reconciliation efforts in post conflict societies are focused on strengthening both institutional reforms and interpersonal processes, each of which is seen as a way to rebuild and repair relationships following violent conflict. Atrocity prevention literature highlights relationship building in post conflict states as critical to eroding the damage of conflict and the trauma of war. Yet, relational phenomena are typically the “black box” of atrocity prevention literature, which shares little specifics about how to define, analyze, nor transform them. Qualitative research and its contextual, naturalistic designs, its rigorous set of parallel methods, and its inherent holistic and appreciative sensibility, can teach us how to better understand everyday lives and events of people living in post-atrocity states. Labels such as ‘trust’, ‘empathy’, and ‘respect’—seen as key indicators of strengthened dialogue in atrocity prevention literature—are analyzed and interpreted more efficiently through the appreciative inquiry of qualitative methods, which can inform more meaningful decision-making designed to prevent further atrocity. Using illustrations from a multi-regional research project, this paper examines how qualitative research frameworks provided the evidence base to better inform understandings of atrocity and reconciliation in post conflict societies in situ, as each state marches on the path toward a sustainable peace