Who’s at Risk? Reflections on In/Security When Working With/Through Military Brokers in Conflict Settings

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I reflect upon my experience of working with active military officers-cum-research brokers in research on the Congolese (DRC) armed forces. Drawing upon the traditions of autoethnography and Narrative International Relations, I recount the story of an evolving relationship between one particular military broker and myself. It highlights how military research brokers, while frequently cast not only as capable of handling their own security, but as prime sources of insecurity, often share the general (civilian) research broker’s predicaments of insecurity. In doing so, the narrative also challenges dominant gendered, as well as racialized, ideas of who is at risk when conducting research in conflict settings.

Acknowledgments

This article was made possible through the support of the Swedish Research Council (2017-05575). I also wish to thank Dan Öberg, Judith Verweijen and Maria Stern for their helpful comments on drafts of this text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council [2017-05575].

Notes on contributors

Maria Eriksson Baaz

Maria Eriksson Baaz is Professor in Political Science at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests include critical military studies, gender and security and post colonial theory. Recently her work has focused on the questions of militarization and sexual violence, with a particular focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is the co-author (with Maria Stern) of Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the Congo and Beyond (Zed Books, 2013). Moreover, she has written and co-edited several books and her articles have appeared in leading international academic journals.