3 research outputs found
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Methodology of the excluded: conspiracy as discourse in the eastern DRC
This article seeks to theorise the importance of locally produced narratives of conflict and peacekeeping which can be used to diversify our understanding of conflict. These narratives are often dismissed as ‘conspiracy theories’ by international peacebuilders and disregarded as ‘unverifiable’ by researchers. But the people who articulate these narratives often have extensive lived experience of conflict. Consequently, they demonstrate sophisticated informal theorising, resistance to malevolent power, and experience-led knowledge in their narratives. Engaging more seriously with these narratives can, therefore, make important contributions to our understandings. Drawing on narratives and stories collected over more than a decade of interview-based and ethnographic field research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this article shows how conspiracy narratives can be analytically useful in questioning the powerful and enduring logics of international intervention and reveal important yet oft-ignored aspects of peacebuilding failure that need to be addressed if peace is to succeed.</p
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Experts in Conflict: Having Been There but Not Being From There
This chapter explores how knowledge on and about conflict is produced by interrogating the relationship between outside researchers and the local knowledge producers who assist them with their research. Subsequently, it questions the role of ‘being there’ in establishing claims to expertise about conflict zones by asking ‘Why is the outsider’s experience of having been there valued as ‘expertise’, while the local’s experience of being from there is not?’ Drawing on the two authors’ experiences of producing knowledge on the conflict in the DRC, as a local and outsider respectively, it explores why the former is considered merely a ‘research broker’ while the latter enjoys an elevated status as a ‘researcher.’ It concludes that the answer lies in kyriarchical and hierarchical system of knowledge which ignore and downplay the invaluable research skills and experience possessed by local knowledge producers while disproportionately reifying ownership of research projects (by outsiders) as “research”. This results in an epistemic injustice whereby local knowledge producers are relatively powerless in how knowledge is presented despite their instrumental role in the production process. In order to address this injustice, this chapter argues for a recalibration of how we understand expertise. Both insider and outsider knowledge producers have expertise which is grounded in each actor possessing complementary research skills and brokerage abilities. By challenging longstanding assumptions about where expertise lays, and diversifying our understanding of expertise, it seeks to challenge ways of knowing that reinforce kyriarchical knowledge systems.</p
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Forum: Making peace with un-certainty: reflections on the role of digital technology in peace processes beyond the data hype
Recent years have seen the acceleration of data- and evidence-based approaches in support of peace processes, creating a renewed confidence that conflicts can be predicted, known, and resolved, based on objective information about the world. However, new technologies employed by conflict parties, stakeholders, and those who aim to make or build peace have also made peace processes less ascertainable, intelligible, and predictable. Technology can thus create both more certainty and uncertainty in (and about) peace processes. This forum article presents a first collaborative attempt to explore how the use of technology by conflict parties and peacebuilding actors influences these dynamics. We examine various fields of engagement, ranging from conflict prevention to peace mediation, peacekeeping, and longer-term peacebuilding. Our discussion engages with a variety of related activities, including predictive analysis and foresight, conflict analysis, cease-fire monitoring, early warning and early action, and problem-solving and trust-building dialogues. We suggest approaching un-certainty as a spectrum between uncertainty and certainty that can be studied across epistemic, ontological, and normative dimensions, thus inviting further academic research and policy reflection. The article is coauthored by scholars and current or former practitioners and underlines the necessity, benefits, and feasibility of research-practice exchanges on this topic.</p