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ABSTRACT
This article seeks to show how the ethnographic peace research agenda can benefit from long-standing discussions in the anthropological literature. It sets out by arguing that the ‘anthropological imagination’ apparent in recent debates in peace and conflict studies is informed by an empiricist positivism that conceives of ethnography as a data-gathering tool. By drawing insights from the ‘writing culture’ and ‘Third World feminism’ debates, I will show how such empiricism was challenged and partly done away with in favour of new dialogical and collaborative approaches to knowledge production. In the second part, focussed on the context of the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia, I will illustrate the limits and blind spots of the prevalent empiricist approach to studying peace and conflict by showing how discourses and imaginaries of a ‘culture of peace’, tolerance and multiculturalism conceal forms of exclusion, marginalization and hidden conflict. I will show how my own collaborative research sheds light on community security practitioners’ efforts to understand and tackle security challenges. This practico-discursive analysis exemplifies how critical ethnographic peace research can help to uncover patterns of conflict management, post-conflict governmentality, and the construction and ‘othering’ of group identities.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, Aksana Ismailbekova, Franco Galdini, and Karolina Kluczewska for their comments and guidance in writing this article. An earlier version was presented at the Annual Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth, Exeter, 14 April 2015, where I received much appreciated comments. I am most indebted to my collaboration partners in Kyrgyzstan, mostly Timur and Alexey, as they enabled my research and patiently engaged in follow-up discussions. Many thanks also to Gearoid Millar and two anonymous reviewers for providing crucial feedback and suggestions that helped to further develop this work. All errors remain my own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
About the author
Philipp Lottholz is a PhD candidate at the International Development Department, University of Birmingham. In his doctoral research he inquires community security and peacebuilding practices and their effects on post-liberal statebuilding in Kyrgyzstan. His research interests include political sociology, critical peacebuilding studies, practice-based and action/activist methodology, international political economy, post-Socialist/post-Soviet studies and post- and decolonial international studies.
Notes
1 See, for instance, Bliesemann de Guevara, Statebuilding; and Distler, “Intervention as a Social Practice,” 327 for an overview.
2 Bliesemann de Guevara, Statebuilding.
3 See Distler, “Intervention as a Social Practice.”
4 Ibid. The same applies to most ‘everyday’ and sociological analyses of intervention, such as Autesserre, Peaceland; Bliesemann de Guevara, Statebuilding.
5 Bliesemann de Guevara, Statebuilding, 15–6.
6 Autesserre, Peaceland; Turner and Kuhn, Tyranny of Peace.
7 Denskus, “Peacebuilding,” 658.
8 Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding; Richmond, Post-Liberal Peace.
9 See Richmond and Mitchell, Hybrid Forms of Peace.
10 See, for instance, Paffenholz, “Unpacking.”
11 See Chap. 6–9 and 15 in Richmond and Mitchell, Hybrid Forms of Peace.
12 Visoka, Peace Figuration, 19.
13 Jutila et al., “Resuscitating a Discipline”; Denskus, “Peacebuilding”; Turner and Kuhn, Tyranny of Peace.
14 Vrasti, “Strange Case”; “Dr Strangelove”; Rancatore, “A Reply,” Millenium, “Forum.”
15 Jutila et al. “Resuscitating a Discipline,” 635; Millar, Ethnographic Approach, 133; Sabaratnam, “Avatars of Eurocentrism.”
16 Finlay, “Liberal Intervention,” 226.
17 Richmond and Mac Ginty, “Where Now?”.
18 Mac Ginty, “Indigenous Peace-Making,” 139.
19 Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding, 4.
20 Richmond, Post-Liberal Peace, 14, see also 75, 146, 199 ff.
21 Vrasti, “Strange Case,” 295.
22 Millar, Ethnographic Approach, 3, 2.
23 Ibid., Chap. 4 and 6.
24 Ibid., 81.
25 Ibid., 83.
26 Ibid., 94–5.
27 For a more detailed discussion see Lottholz, “Boundaries of Knowledge.”
28 Millar, Ethnographic Approach, 6.
29 Finlay, “Liberal Intervention.”
30 Millar, Ethnographic Approach, 6.
31 Vrasti, “Strange Case,” 297; Hale, “Activist Research”; Restrepo and Escobar, “World Anthropologies.”
32 Denskus, “Peacebuilding.”
33 Jutila et al., “Resuscitating a Discipline,” 623.
34 Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding; Richmond, Post-Liberal Peace. For further critiques see Paffenholz, “Unpacking,” and Graef, Post-Liberal Peacebuilding, Chap. 1. Mac Ginty and Richmond, discuss the critiques in “Where Now?”.
35 Richmond et al., “Introduction,” 3, 4; see also 6, 8, 14 and a more nuanced discussion on pp.13–5.
36 Chandler, “Peacebuilding,” 25 ff.
37 Avruch, Culture and Conflict Resolution.
38 Black and Avruch, “Anthropologists in Conflictland,” 34; see Burton, Deep-Rooted Conflict.
39 For instance, Pinker, Better Angels; Fry, Human Potential.
40 Souillac and Fry, “Anthropology,” 75.
41 Restrepo and Escobar, “World Anthropologies,” 111;
42 Ibid.; Richmond notices this ‘fork in the path’ but does not provide a solution or positioning on it; Richmond, “New Approaches,” 697–8.
43 Jutila et al., “Resuscitating a Discipline,” 629.
44 Gleditsch et al., “Peace Research,” 145.
45 Jutila et al., “Resuscitating a Discipline,” 636.
46 Sabaratnam, “IR in Dialogue”; “Avatars of Eurocentrism.”
47 Sabaratnam, “Avatars of Eurocentrism.”
48 Chandler, “Peacebuilding,” 25; Said, “Representing the Colonized.”
49 Finlay, “Liberal Intervention,” 226.
50 Vrasti, “Strange Case,” 295.
51 The insights discussed are necessarily based on a cursory reading and on reflections provided by other authors. See Restrepo and Escobar, “World Anthropologies”; Abu-Lughod, “Writing Against Culture”; Hale, “Activist Research”; Vrasti, “Strange Case.”; Marcus and Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique; and Clifford, The Predicament of Culture.
52 Marcus and Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique, Chap. 1.
53 Vrasti, “Strange Case,” 296.
54 Ibid.
55 Clifford, Ethnography through Thick and Thin.
56 Said, “Representing the Colonized,” 208; Restrepo and Escobar, “World Anthropologies,” 107.
57 Cf. Abu-Lughod, “Writing Against Culture” for an integrated discussion of cultural and feminist critique. I omit the concurrently used term ‘Women of Colour Feminism’ for sake of brevity.
58 Amos and Parmar, “Challenging Imperial Feminism,” 45.
59 Ibid.
60 Maxine Molyneux cited in ibid., 48.
61 Moraga and Anzaldúa, This Bridge Called My Back; Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes,” Minh-Ha, “Difference.”
62 Avtar Brah in Brah et al., “A Feminist Review Roundtable,” 202.
63 “Editorial,” 5.
64 Spurlin, “resisting heteronormativity,” 13.
65 See, for instance, the two editorials by Teacher and Shukrallah and by Azim, reprinted in the 25th anniversary issue of Feminist Review.
66 Denskus, “Peacebuilding,” 661.
67 Hale, “Activist Research”; “Introduction”.
68 Hale, “Activist Research,” 101.
69 For instance, Büger and Gadinger, International Practice Theory; Kustermans, “Practice Turn.”
70 Graef, Post-Liberal Peacebuilding, ch. 3; Paffenholz, “Unpacking,” 868.
71 Vrasti, “Strange Case,” 286.
72 Lewis, “Central Asia.”
73 See ibid. for a more detailed discussion.
74 Marat, “Imagined Past.”
75 Estimates revolve around 470 deaths, 400,000 internally displaced persons and 110,000 who (temporarily) left the country. See Matveeva et al., “Tragedy,” and the report of the independent but contested Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission under http://www.kgzembind.in/Report%20(English).pdf.
76 This framing was heavily contested by the government, though; see Megoran et al., “Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Projects.”
77 Ibid.
78 Reeves, “Locating Danger.”
79 The announcement can be found at http://www.kyrnatcom.unesco.kz/conflict%20centre.htm. All translations from Russian are the author’s.
80 Toktosunova, “From the Editor,” 5.
81 Ibid.
82 Alisheva, Building Peace, 6–7.
83 Shamudinova, Formation of Tolerance, 7.
84 Megoran et al., “Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Projects”’; Reeves, “Locating Danger.”
85 Anonymous, Peace Messengers, 5.
86 Ibid., 9.
87 Ibid., 5.
88 Ibid., 12; emphasis added.
89 Bennett, “Everything.”
90 Marat, “Imagined Past,” 15; Gaziyev, Ethnonationalism. This was confirmed by follow-up research on the project conducted in July 2012 and in July 2015.
91 See activities of one of the largest national NGOs, the Foundation for Tolerance International (http://www.fti.org.kg/en/about-us/our-work) and priority areas of the UN Peacebuilding Fund (http://www.unpbf.org/countries/kyrgyzstan/).
92 Marat, “Imagined Past.”
93 Ibid.; Gaziyev, Ethnonationalism.
94 Ibid.; Ismailbekova and Karimova, “Conflict Dynamics.”
95 Tishkov, “Don’t Kill Me.”
96 Ibid.; Megoran et al., “Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Projects.”
97 Ibid.; Matveeva et al., “Tragedy.”
98 Megoran et al., “Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Projects,” 16.
99 On several occasions during my fieldwork middle-aged Kyrgyz interviewees shared their visions of society based on multiculturalist idea and their wish that ‘everything was as it used to be’ (26 June, Bishkek; 9 November, Bishkek).
100 Lottholz, “Negative Post-Liberal Peace.”
101 See Bennett, “Everything.”
102 Ismailbekova and Karimova, “Conflict Dynamics.”
103 Bekmurzaev et al., “Navigating Safety Implications.”
104 Sabaratnam, “Avatars of Eurocentrism.”
105 Finlay, “Liberal Intervention,” 231.
106 Ibid.; see also Graef, Post-Liberal Peacebuilding, Chap. 1; Millar, Ethnographic Approach, 103; Rancatore, “A Reply,” 74–5.
107 Bekmurzaev et al., “Navigating Safety Implications,” Graef, Post-Liberal Peacebuilding, Chap. 4; Millar, Ethnographic Approach, 140.
108 Hale, “Activist Research,” 110–1.
109 See Mosse, “Anti-Social Anthropology?”, 946 ff.
110 For instance, Lottholz, “Polizeireform”; Lottholz, “Police Reform.”
111 To the extent that this research was ‘predicated on alignment with a group organized in struggle, and on collaborative relations of knowledge productions with members of that group’, it could also be called activist research according to Hale’s definition (“Introduction,” 20).
112 Cf. Lottholz, “Police Reform.”
113 All following quotes translated from Russian or Kyrgyz and taken from a participatory observation during a planning event on 11 November 2015 if not indicated otherwise.
114 CURR, “Security Together.”
115 30 November 2015.
116 CURR, “Security Together.”
117 Interview with representative of CURR; Bishkek/Birmingham, 26 March 2016; correspondence with representative of international NGO Saferworld, March 2016.
118 Correspondence with CURR representative, 30 March 2017.
119 Lottholz, “Police Reform,” 27.
120 See Graef, Post-Liberal Peacebuilding, 51 ff.
121 See, for instance, the ‘Hearing Voices Project’ (http://www.hearingvoicesproject.org/), or ‘Pax in Nuce’ magazine (https://pcdnetwork.org/blogs/pax-in-nuce-new-online-magazine/).
122 Vrasti, “Dr Strangelove.”