![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
While Peace Studies has always incorporated different research methodologies, large-N quantitative methods and state-level findings have dominated the literature and had most influence on policy and practice. Today, however, the limitations of peace interventions are commonly identified with the institutional, state-centric, and technocratic approaches associated with such limited understandings and their resultant policies. This paper argues, therefore, that the inability of these methods to examine local experiences of conflict, transition, and peace in diverse sociocultural settings contributes to inadequate policy formation and, thus, to problematic interventions. Indeed, the recent ‘local turn’ and its focus on the everyday, resistance, hybridity, and friction demands research that can better interpret local experiences of conflict, transition, and peace and, thereby, discover more locally salient practice. While this paper argues that an Ethnographic Peace Research (EPR) agenda must be central to such efforts, it also argues against applying the ethnographic label to work that is more suitably described as qualitative (site visits, interviews, focus groups, etc.). The paper argues that long-term fieldwork and close engagement with the subjects of peacebuilding must be required within any EPR agenda. The underappreciated benefits of such fieldwork are illustrated with examples from research in northern Sierra Leone.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
About the author
Gearoid Millar is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the Institute for Conflict, Transition, and Peace Research (ICTPR), University of Aberdeen. He is the author of An Ethnographic Approach to Peacebuilding: Understanding Local Approaches in Transitional States (Routledge, 2014) and editor of Ethnographic Peace Research: Approaches and Tensions (Palgrave, 2018). He has published articles in the Journal of Peace Research, International Peacekeeping, the Journal of Human Rights, Cooperation and Conflict, the Journal of Agrarian Change, Rural Sociology, and Third World Quarterly.
Notes
1 Jakobson, “Transformation of United Nations”.
2 Paris, “International Peacebuilding”; Tschirgi and de Coning, “Ensuring Sustainable Peace”.
3 Paffenholz and Spurk, “Civil Society, Civil Engagement”; Blum, “Improving Peacebuilding Evaluation”.
4 Catholic Relief Services, “GAIN Peacebuilding Indicators”; UN, “Monitoring Peace Consolidation”; OECD, “Evaluating Peacebuilding Activities”.
5 Millar, Ethnographic Approach, 15.
6 Mac Ginty, “Peacekeeping and Data”.
7 Mac Ginty and Richmond, “Local Turn”.
8 Chandler, “Peacebuilding and the Politics”; Millar, “Respecting Complexity”.
9 Björkdahl and Höglund, “Precarious Peacebuilding”, 294.
10 Goldstein, “Winning the War on War”, Chapter 2.
11 Wallerstein and Sollenberg, “After the Cold War”.
12 Sawyer, “Violent Conflicts and Governance Challenges”; Young, “African Conflict Zone”; Pugh, Cooper, and Goodhand, War Economies.
13 Tardy, “Critique of Robust Peacebuilding”.
14 Stedman, “New Interventionists”.
15 Paris, “Peacebuilding and the Limits”; De Soto and del Castillo, “Obstacles to Peacebuilding”; Richmond, Björkdahl, and Kapler, “Emerging EU Peacebuilding”; Williams, “Peace and Security Council”; Gheci, “Divided Partners”.
16 Van Tongeren et al., People Building Peace II; Pouligny, “Civil Society and Post-conflict”; Van Leeuwen, Partners in Peace; Edwards, Hulme, and Wallace, “NGOs in a Global Future”; Adejumobi, “Conflict and Peacebuilding”; Cubitt, Local and Global Dynamics; Paffenholz and Spurk, “Civil Society, Civil Engagement”.
17 Sending, Why Peacebuilders Fail, 3.
18 Shaw, “Rethinking Truth and Reconciliation”; Donais, “Empowerment or Imposition”, 23.
19 Mac Ginty, “Hybrid Peace”, 408.
20 Denskus, “Challenging the International”, 151.
21 Paris, At War's End, 6.
22 Doyle, “Three Pillars”; Paris, “Saving Liberal Peacebuilding”.
23 O’Neal et al., “The Liberal Peace”; Souva and Prins, “Liberal Peace Revisited”.
24 Millar, “Disaggregated Hybridity”.
25 Mac Ginty, “Routine Peace”, 289; Denskus, “Challenging the International”, 151.
26 Autesserre, Trouble with the Congo, 25–6.
27 Mac Ginty, “Hybrid Peace”; Jarstad and Belloni, “Hybrid Peace Governance”; Millar, “Disaggregated Hybridity”; Björkdahl and Höglund, “Precarious Peacebuilding”; Millar, van der Lijn, and Verkoren, “Peacebuilding Plans”; Millar, “Expectations and Experiences”.
28 Millar, “Disaggregated Hybridity”, 503.
29 Millar, “Performative Memory”.
30 Paffenholz and Spurk, “Civil Society, Civil Engagement”; Blum, “Improving Peacebuilding Evaluation”; Duggan, “Transitional Justice on Trial”; Paffenholz, Abu-Nimer, and McCandless, “Peacebuilding and Development”; Bush and Duggan, “Evaluation in in Conflict Zones”.
31 Mac Ginty and Richmond, “Local Turn”, 778.
32 Sikkink and Booth Walling, “Impact of Human Rights”; Olsen, Payne, and Reiter, Transitional Justice in Balance.
33 Jerven, Poor Numbers; Engle Merry and Wood, “Quantification and the Paradox”.
34 Müller and Bashar, “UNAMID”.
35 Mac Ginty and Richmond, “The Fallacy”.
36 Ibid.
37 Bubandt and Otto, “Predicaments of Holism”, 1.
38 Robben and Sluka, “Fieldwork in Cultural Anthropology”, 2.
39 Powdermaker cited in Robben and Sluka, “Fieldwork in Cultural Anthopology”, 13.
40 Jackson, “Paths toward a Clearing”, 3.
41 Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World”, 100.
42 Appadurai, Modernity at Large; Tsing, Friction; Mosse, “Anthropology of International Development”; Carse, “2013 in Sociocultural Anthropology”; see also contributions to Millar, Ethnographic Peace Research.
43 Gupta and Ferguson, “Beyond Culture”; Hannerz, “Being There”; Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World”.
44 Clifford and Marcus, “Writing Culture”; Davies, Reflexive Ethnography, 10.
45 Crapanzano, “Heart of the Discipline”, 56.
46 Diphoorn, “Emotionality of Participation”; Davies and Spencer, Emotions in the Field.
47 Richards, Fighting; Vigh, Navigating Terrains; Coulter, Bush Wives; Lombard, State of Rebellion.
48 Shaw, “Memory Frictions”; Theidon, Intimate Enemies; Park, Reappeared; Bräuchler, Cultural Dimensions; Honwana, Child Soldiers. Nordstrom, Shadows of War; Nordstrom and Robben, Fieldwork under Fire; Das, Life and Words; Hinton and Hinton, Genocide and Mass Violence.
49 Denskus, “Challenging the International”; Denskus, “Peacebuilding Does Not”; Millar, Ethnographic Approach.
50 Ingold, Being Alive, 3.
51 Lewis, “Anthropology and Colonialism”; Pels, “What has Anthropology Learned”.
52 Chambers, “Applied Anthropology”; Robben “Anthropology and the Iraq War”.
53 Boulding, “Future Direction”, 343–4.
54 Ingold, Being Alive.
55 Ingold, “That's Enough about Ethnography”, 384.
56 Mac Ginty, “Peacekeeping and Data”, 701.
57 Bledsoe and Robey, “Arabic Literacy and Secrecy”; Murphy, “Sublime Dance”; Shaw, “Memory Frictions”.
58 Millar, “Between Western Theory”; Milllar, “Lef Ma Case”.
59 Bozzoli, “Public Ritual”; Kelsall, “Truth, Lies, Ritual”.
60 Millar, “Evaluations of Truth”; Millar, “Evaluations of Justice”; Millar, “Local Experiences”.
61 Okely, Anthropological Practice; Crapanzano, “At the Heart”, 60.
62 Donnelly, “How did Sierra Leone”.
63 WHO, World Health Statistics 2010.
64 Witter, Wurie, and Bertone, “Free Health Care Initiative”, 9.
65 Gbla, “Security Sector Reform”; Krogstad, “Security, Development, and Force”.
66 Horn, Olonisakin, and Peake, “United Kingdom-led Security”.
67 Sawyer, “Remove or Reform”.
68 US State Department, “Sierra Leone 2015”; Kamara, “Discharged Inmates”.
69 Rosaldo, “Grief”; Diphoorn, “Emotionality of Participation”, 208–9.
70 Zoomers, “Globalisation and the Foreignisation”.
71 Millar, “Investing in Peace”; Millar, “Coopting Authority”.
72 Millar, “Coopting Authority”.
73 Millar, “Local Experiences”.
74 Peters and Richards, “Why We Fight”; Humphreys and Weinstein, “Who Fights?”, 439.
75 Richmond, “Resistance and the Post-Liberal”, 676.
76 Vrasti, “Strange Case of Ethnography”.
77 Ingold, “That's Enough about Ethnography”, 384.