Of loss and light : teaching in the time of grief

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The things they carry : victims’ documentation of forced disappearance in Colombia and Sri Lanka

Roxani Krystalli’s research was supported by fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation (DDRIG), the United States Institute of Peace (Peace Scholarship), the Social Science Research Council (IDRF and DPDF), the Henry J. Leir Institute (Human Security Fellowship), the World Peace Foundation and The Fletcher School PhD Fund.Survivors of systematic violations of human rights abuses carry with them the evidence of their victimization: photographs of the missing, news clippings, copies of police reports. In some contexts, collecting and preserving these documents is part of an effort to claim benefits, such as official victim status or reparations, from the state. In others, it serves as a record of and rebuke to the state’s inaction. In this article, through a comparative case study of victim mobilization in Colombia and Sri Lanka, we explore how these dynamics play out in contexts with high and low (respectively) levels of state action on transitional justice. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork in both contexts, we examine grassroots documentation practices with an eye toward how they reflect the strategic adaptation of international transitional justice norms to specific contexts. We also examine how they organize relationships among individuals, the state, and notions of justice in times of transition from war and dictatorship. We argue that, beyond the strategic engagement with and/or rebuke of the state, these documents are also sites of ritual and memory for those who collect them.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Taking love and care seriously : an emergent research agenda for remaking worlds in the wake of violence

Roxani Krystalli’s portion of the research was supported by fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation (DDRIG #1823387), the United States Institute of Peace (Peace Scholarship), the Social Science Research Council (IDRF and DPDF), the Henry J. Leir Institute (Human Security Fellowship), the World Peace Foundation and The Fletcher School PhD Fund. Philipp Schulz's portion of the research received support from the German Research Foundation, grant number SCHU 3391/1.While research on armed conflict focuses primarily on violence and suffering, this article explores the practices of love and care that sit alongside these experiences of harm. Motivated by our omissions to pay sufficient attention to love and care in our research to date, we ask: How can centering practices of love and care illuminate different pathways for understanding the remaking of worlds in the wake of violence? Building on interdisciplinary literature, we conceptualize love and care as practices and potential sites of politics that shape how people survive and make sense of violence as well as imagine and enact lives in its wake. Drawing from our respective research in Colombia and Uganda, we argue that paying attention to love and care expands scholarly understandings of the sites associated with remaking a world, draws attention to the simultaneity of harms and care, sheds light on the textured meanings of politics and political work, and highlights ethical and narrative dilemmas regarding how to capture these political meanings without reducing their intricacies. For each of the pillars of our argument, we propose a set of questions and avenues that can shape emergent research agendas on taking love and care seriously in contexts of armed conflict.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Social connections and displacement from South Sudan to Uganda : towards a relational understanding of survival during conflict

This report is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with support from the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA).South Sudanese fled their communities in large numbers following the outbreak of political violence in 2013, with an estimated 4.5 million forcibly displaced by mid-2018. Of neighbouring countries, Uganda hosts the greatest number of South Sudanese refugees. Based on qualitative data collected in 2018 and 2019 in two refugee settlements in the West Nile sub-region of Uganda, this article examines the social connectedness of refugees during their flight and after their arrival in Uganda. How do refugees rely on the new relationships they form during displacement, and in what ways do these relationships enhance our understanding of the role, forms, and importance of social connectedness during displacement? We analyse how social connections provide material and non-material support, how refugees use scarce resources to negotiate and cultivate social connections, and how gender and status influence inclusion and exclusion within social networks. We find that proximity and shared experience are the two most important factors in social connectedness following displacement and that non-material support plays a critical role in facilitating resilience. Collectively, these findings highlight the significance of a relational, rather than individualistic, approach to survival during displacement. In addition to the theoretical significance of these findings, and the contribution to the growing literature on social connectedness during armed conflict, this article is relevant to humanitarian decision-makers and practitioners who aim to craft programmes that support, rather than undermine, the coping strategies of displaced people.PostprintPeer reviewe

Doing memory with needle and thread:Narrating transformations of violent conflict

The two authors embark on a conversation about how textiles open up space for different kinds of storytelling — understood as central to interpretive research — about violence, memory and transformation in the aftermath of armed conflict. They draw on their respective research and experiences in the context of the armed conflict and fragile peace process in Colombia, where Roxani investigates the politics and hierarchies of victimhood, and Berit is involved in a project that combines narrative practice and textile narratives into a methodology to explore former guerrilla combatants’ subjectivities and wider society’s resonances to their preferred stories. Photos of textiles and textile-making accompany their conversation.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Pedagogy as care: Love, loss, and learning in the world politics classroom

In this article, we elaborate pedagogies of care, contemplating what it means to teach with and about care in the world politics classroom, situated within the neoliberal, colonial, heteropatriarchal, white western academy. Further, we actively reflect on what it means to work caringly and carefully in practice, exploring pedagogy as care. What are the dilemmas that arise for scholars and teachers, differently positioned in the academy, who seek to teach with and about care in the context of a world politics education? How can we teach with care in often uncaring educational institutions that are hostile to staff and students, particularly those from racialized and other oppressed and marginalized communities? How are our practices and methods of teaching also acts of care? Building on interdisciplinary feminist literature on care, we argue that caring pedagogies can disrupt academic hierarchies and foster intergenerational connection. We also position pedagogy as care, acknowledging that as we teach, we mourn and honor/care for antecedents (both human and more-than-human), nourish our present selves and those with whom we interact, and build community/care for (visions/versions of) the future. Our intervention contributes to ongoing conversations about opening our classrooms as spaces of radical possibility in contemporary higher education

Pedagogy as care : love, loss, and learning in the world politics classroom

Funding: Dr Roxani Krystalli’s reflections for this article were supported by ongoing work as part of a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the German Research Foundation (AH/X001725/1).In this article, we elaborate pedagogies of care, contemplating what it means to teach with and about care in the world politics classroom, situated within the neoliberal, colonial, heteropatriarchal, white western academy. Further, we actively reflect on what it means to work caringly and carefully in practice, exploring pedagogy as care. What are the dilemmas that arise for scholars and teachers, differently positioned in the academy, who seek to teach with and about care in the context of a world politics education? How can we teach with care in often uncaring educational institutions that are hostile to staff and students, particularly those from racialized and other oppressed and marginalized communities? How are our practices and methods of teaching also acts of care? Building on interdisciplinary feminist literature on care, we argue that caring pedagogies can disrupt academic hierarchies and foster intergenerational connection. We also position pedagogy as care, acknowledging that as we teach, we mourn and honor/care for antecedents (both human and more-than-human), nourish our present selves and those with whom we interact, and build community/care for (visions/versions of) the future. Our intervention contributes to ongoing conversations about opening our classrooms as spaces of radical possibility in contemporary higher education.Peer reviewe

Taking the research experience seriously : a framework for reflexive applied research in development

This work was supported in part by the United States Agency for International Development (grant number AID-OAA-A-12-00095, 2011–2022).Interdisciplinary scholarly literature considers how research processes may adversely affect their participants. Building on this work, this article addresses the processes and practices of applied research in contexts in which imbalances of power exist between researchers and those being researched. We argue that research activities in international development and humanitarian work that are typically operational, such as needs assessments, baseline studies, and monitoring and evaluation, represent interventions in the lives of participants, with the potential to create value or harm, delight or distress. The ethical and methodological dilemmas of this intervention have received less attention than purely academic discussions of human subject research. How can applied researchers meaningfully reckon with the effects of the research process on both those conducting it and those participating in it throughout the research cycle? In response, we introduce an approach co-developed over seven years through engagement with applied researchers across sectors. We discuss four interrelated principles—relevance, respect, right-sizing, and rigor—intended to invite a commitment to ongoing process improvement in the conduct of applied research. We also propose a framework to guide the implementation of these principles and illustrate the tensions that may arise in the process of its application. These contributions extend conversations about research ethics and methods to the operational research realm, as well as provide concrete tools for reflecting on the processes of operational research as sites of power that ought to be considered as seriously as the findings of data collection activities.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Deconstructing the 2012 Human Security Report:examining narratives on wartime sexual violence

At a time of increasing attention to the issue of wartime sexual violence, the 2012 Human Security Report (HSR 2012) sought to expose perceived biases in the mainstream narrative. HSR 2012 raised questions about the prevalence of wartime sexual violence, whether this form of violence was increasing or decreasing, the identity of perpetrators and victims, the state of evidence-based research and its challenges, and the policy implications of such analyses. While some of HSR 2012’s findings have been widely accepted, many of the report’s inferences are problematic. This paper uses HSR 2012 as a primary source to ask why narratives about sexual violence matter; why closely examining the report’s narrative, in particular, is important; and how we can be more reflective about what we can and do know about wartime sexual violence, given the opportunities and limitations of conducting research in this field