Research Brokers, Researcher Identities and Affective Performances: The Insider/Outsider Conundrum

ABSTRACT

This paper reflects upon the role of brokers in facilitating research in conflict zones, which the researcher identifies as ‘native’ areas of research in the Global South. Researchers from the Global South, based in academic and research institutions in Western locations and having received funding from foreign agencies, conduct field research in conflict geographies which they maybe native to, or may have inhabited for long periods of time. Brokers facilitate research in these ‘native’ areas of research, leading to difficult encounters between the researcher, research subjects and brokers themselves. I analyze the intimate and uncomfortable affective encounters between researchers and research brokers from the Global South who share national or cultural identity, language and above all, spatial nativity and familiarity.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This was earlier only prevalent in disciplines such as anthropology but political scientists and International Relations scholars are now also getting empirical data from fieldwork in conflicts.

2. Red corridor region is demarcated to notify the districts which are affected by left wing or Maoist extremism. It spans across 10 States (provinces), namely Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

3. Jharkhand was carved out as a separate state from Bihar to address the long-standing demands of the local communities to protect their indigenous identity and rights to resources for both Adivasi (tribals) and Moolvasi (original non-tribal settlers). The local activists consider all the people who have come to the state of Jharkhand after 1932, as outsiders.

4. Name changed to protect identity.

5. Birsa Munda. The irony of a British man honoured with local requests to garland his statue. Birsa Munda was a folk hero and a tribal freedom fighter hailing from the state of Jharkhand. He was a led a rebellion against the British colonial administration. He fought against the forceful land grabbing which would turn the tribals into bonded labourers and push them into abject poverty.

6. Ramesh Singh, since his death, is now considered a Maoist ideologue and not a genuine Human Rights activist that he always presented himself as.

Additional information

Funding

This article was made possible through the support of the Swedish Research Council (2017-05575).

Notes on contributors

Swati Parashar

Swati Parashar is Associate Professor in Peace and Development at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is a research associate at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD), at SOAS, London and a Visiting Faculty at the Malaviya Centre for Peace Research, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.