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Abstract
Knowledge on conflict-affected areas is becoming increasingly important for scholarship and policy. This article identifies a recent change in knowledge production regarding 'zones of danger', attributing it not only to the external environment, but also to an on-going process of securitisation of research resulting from institutional and disciplinary practices. Research is increasingly framed by security concerns and is becoming a security concern in itself, although the implications are not readily acknowledged. To illustrate these developments, we draw on fieldwork in Mali and Darfur.
Notes
1. This article is developed in the context of the project ‘The Duty of Care: Protecting Citizens Abroad (DoC:PRO)’, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. Fieldwork in Darfur was conducted under the Training for Peace Programme, funded through the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
2. For example, Walsh, “Italian Student’s Brutal Killing.”
3. Developed mainly in common-law legal systems, the concept of duty of care (or ‘duty of protection’, or ‘due diligence’) presumes that ‘[i]ndividuals and organisations have legal obligations to act towards others and the public in a prudent and cautious manner to avoid the risk of reasonably foreseeable injury to others’; see de Guttry, “Duty of Care.” This obligation may apply to actions and omissions and may give rise to claims for damages.
4. El-Din, “AUC Remembers Giulio Regeni.”
5. Pyper and Waddilove, ‘Why the UK Government’.
6. See “EU Parliament Passes Resolution.”
7. Valverde and Mopas, “Insecurity and the Dream.”
8. Buzan, Wæver, and De Wilde, Security: A New Framework.
9. Meger, “Fetishization of Sexual Violence.”
10. See the following websites: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice; http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/conseils-aux-voyageurs/; https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alertswarnings.html
11. Said, Orientalism.
12. O’Tuathail. “Language and Nature.”
13. Ó’Tuathail, “Localising Geopolitics”; Dalby, “Imperialism, Domination, Culture.”
14. Gruffydd Jones, “Global Political Economy”; Morton and Bilgin, “Historicising Representations of ‘Failed States’”; Hill, “Beyond the Other?”
15. GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014.
16. Nordstrom and Robben, Fieldwork under Fire; Lee-Treweek and Linkogle, Danger in the Field; Jennings, War Zone as Social.
17. Hoffmann, Doing Fieldwork, 5.
18. Russo and Strazzari, “Sovereignty vs. Biopolitics.”
20. For a symposium on this decision see special issue of the PS: Political Science & Politics, with the introductory article by Lupia and Elman, “Openness in Political Science”; and Buthe, “Transparency in Qualitative.”
21. REF 2014 Impact Case Studies, available at http://impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/FAQ.aspx
22. Ibid.
23. Tapscott and Desai, “Tomayto Tomahto.”
24. USHA/UCEA, “Guidance on Health and Safety.”
25. See ENTRI webpage: http://www.entriforccm.eu/training/pre-deployment-training-courses/ (last accessed March 2016).
26. HEAT, “Course Description.”
27. Duffield, “Risk-Management and the Fortified,” 461.
28. Controversy remains as to what may constitute ‘personal sensitive data’. For example, the EU’s ‘Guidance: How to Complete Your Ethics Self-Assessment’, to be used in applying for research grants to all EU macro-funding schemes, includes ‘political opinions’ under the category of ‘sensitive data’, forcing interpretive creativity on the part of all researchers working on political affairs.
29. CEAUSSIC, AAA Commission on the Engagement.
30. Kosovo Fixers: https://www.facebook.com/kosovofixers (last accessed March 2016).
31. On the background to the Mali crisis see Lecocq et al., “One Hippopotamus and Eight”; Whitehouse and Strazzari, “Introduction: Rethinking Challenges.”
32. A restaurant, a hotel attended by ‘internationals’ and the headquarters of the EU military training mission were hit in Bamako on 7 March 2015, 20 November 2015, and 21 March 2016, respectively.
33. My research during this fieldwork built on contacts in the region that were established prior to the 2012 crisis by other researchers in my institute.
34. New fieldwork safety protocols were introduced in 2016 following the Regeni case: the same low-profile work would be forbidden today under the same PhD programme.
35. On one occasion we were diverted to a clueless head of police when a sudden visit by the US ambassador to discuss ‘security matters’ imposed an improvised schedule reorganisation at the Ministry of Interior.
36. For background see Flint and de Waal, Darfur: A New History; Mamdani, Saviours and Survivors: Darfur.
37. Reliefweb, “Sudan: Humanitarian Bulletin.”
38. Caparini et al., “Role of the Police.”
39. Autesserre, Peaceland; Duffield, “Risk-Management and the Fortified”; Higate and Henry, Insecure Spaces: Peacekeeping, Power; Smirl, “Building the Other.”
40. Dauphinee, “Ethics of Autoethnography.”
41. Law, After Method.